


In Which The Winter Soldier Might Just Be Wooing Darcy

by Out_Of_Custody



Series: Courting Rituals Of Reformed Soviet Assassins [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A little bit of violence, AIM - Freeform, And knives, Awesome Natasha, BAMF Darcy, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Comfort, Darcy understands, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Instructor Clint, Jane is a good friend, Marksmanship, PTSD, Prompt Fic, So Much Subtext, Tasers, but he has his reasons, courting, cqc, kind of, mentions of - Freeform, selective mutism, steve is an ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly what it says on the tin<br/>(Prompt-Fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eins

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by [kc-s](http://kc-s.tumblr.com/post/139921131520/wintershieldshock-prompts)

The first time Darcy encountered True Danger with capital letters was in Tromsø, where Jane and her had – conveniently – been hidden away while the Avengers were out avenging stuff. Rationally she was well aware that any hacker worth their salt could have located them in no time at all; especially when taking into consideration the Intel Dump just earlier that year, but she knew too that she couldn’t dwell on that. (Not when she aimed to maintain a certain level of sanity…)

Especially when Jane got all SCIENCE!

Surviving Jane and making certain that said scientist herself maintained her transport (she _did_ feel a little like Watson on occasion) could be a challenging task on regular days, but in her less stellar periods, Darcy barely managed to get the scientist to eat unless she threatened with IV-feeding. And the only reason _that_ worked was because Jane was ridiculously afraid of needles and if it weren’t her last resort, Darcy would never have used this fear against her friend.

They’d had a good night.

Tromsø was so far up Norway that not only was Darcy – very willingly she might add – subjected to the fascinating beauty of the Aurora Borealis _in natura_ while Jane rattled off reasons for the colours (go iron and oxygen and whatever else was in the air making these beautiful streaks across the sky) and then urged her to help her with the readings.

They’d been productive as fuck, even though most of Jane’s ramblings still went over Darcy’s head. When dawn broke – even though it would only be for a few hours – Darcy loped her arm around her friend and they’d made their way back to the hotel room they’d graciously been offered, free of charge.

However, they’d barely hit the road, Jane safely snuggled into the passenger seat, when another car showed up out of nowhere.

Darcy felt unwell with the idea of another vehicle on the street so early; especially considering that they were, quite literally too, in the middle of bumfuck-nowhere. She tried not to let it show and instead, opted for the calm driving style she reserved for a knackered Jane.

Until the car closed in.

She’d only skimmed the driver’s face before she registered the barrel of the gun pointed at her and, in a reflex she’d later thank herself for, hit the brake – the shot went wild.

“Shit.”

Trusty as her car was, it was old, as were the tires and while she wasn’t an expert on physics she was well aware that braking on frozen ground with fucked-up-tires had a great potential of getting herself killed. Jane barely mumbled in her seat.

In front of her the blue Polo (really?!) executed a perfect U-Turn and hit the gas backwards. If Darcy weren’t so focussed on keeping them alive she’d have cracked a joke about GTA Norway, Limited Edition – Out Now. As it was, the barrel pointed at her _again_ and before she could properly swerve, the second shot rang through the air, Darcy ducked behind the wheel, hitting the gas, escape on her mind.

Of all days, of _all_ days, it had to be this one.

Darcy grunted when the third shot rang out again, aimed at her – her hand fell to the gear-changer and she jammed it seamlessly, going faster. Jane wasn’t being shot at and if she’d have to wager then the despots probably wanted Dr Jane Foster alive, whereas her intern was expendable. She made a split-second choice.

Hitting the gas, Darcy ducked as low behind the wheel as possible while retaining the ability to see enough of the road to steer properly. She had no weapons herself, save for the Taser that wouldn’t, in this case, do her any good so her only other option consisted in making a run for it.

Given the fact that she’d, actually, hashed out a contingency plan – out of pure boredom if she were honest, she hadn’t thought that it’d be needed – she knew just where she wanted to go and what to do. All she needed was a little advantage.

She swerved to the right, into the smaller car and gleefully watched it wobble on the uncooperative underground – however, her opponents regained control of the vehicle astoundingly quickly by slowing down until they found their lane again. By then Darcy had managed to get all the advantage she needed.

Or so she thought.

Infuriating bastards with guns probably wasn’t her best idea, she conceded, when the hail of bullets started up again, shattering her rear window. Darcy pulled down Jane – unwilling to let her be harmed. Knocked out as the scientist was, she didn’t mind hunkering down between the passenger seat and the console; Darcy had to hope for the best.

She’d made it back to the remote lab she and Jane had put most of their machinery, but pausing there wasn’t an option – shouldn’t have been an option. Except, you know, it was pretty much surrounded by vehicles and men with guns. Darcy cursed and slowed to a halt.

The Polo (still: seriously?) came up behind her and a man exited, cursing up a blue storm as he marched towards her. Darcy locked the doors and hunkered down.

“Give up Dr Foster!” the man demanded, barrel to the window. Darcy swallowed.

“Never!”, she stated loudly, asking herself if she was crazy to kind of _enjoy_ this, “And if you shoot any more gorram bullets into my vehicle I’m-a hunt you down and make you pay for a new one! This is a 1961, T1 VW-bus, do you know how few of those are still around in mint condition?!”

A bullet cracked the window – again: with the agonizing bastards with bullets.

“I count to thr- gragh“

She knew he wanted to be dramatic but _this_ kind of took it. For a few moments there was silence before shouts in various languages reached her ears, then shots – none of them aimed at her bus. Curiosity won out her fear of being hit by a stray bullet, and she inched her head over the controls. A streak of black flittered through the rows of people, taking them down as if they were born for it. Darcy didn’t see a lot what with the muzzle covering the lower half, but then there was a glint of something… strangely familiar, painted with a red something

-and then it clicked.

Darcy ducked down again, stared, swallowed.

Outside the sounds of the fight continued, but slowly died down and Darcy’s heart sped up as she thought of the implications. Jane was still prone between the seat and the console and for once Darcy cursed her ability to lull the scientist into a sense of such security that she would fall asleep _everywhere_. Darcy grimaced when a last shot rang out.

Silence reigned then, and Darcy wondered if she should even _try_ to run for cover, but figured it would probably be useless.

A knock on the door tore her out of her frantic musings with a slight shriek and she twisted on the uncomfortable floor as the door opened, her hand reflexively holding up her Taser, to reveal a stony faced man with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

Darcy swallowed as the Winter Soldier stared her down.

His jaw worked silently as he glared at the offending weapon in her hands, and she realized that where the muzzle had been before, was now tattered fabric – it must have gone to literal shambles during the fight. And while he stood there, hand still on the door he’d just opened Darcy’s mind spiralled into fully formed panic and she did what she always did when in panic…

“Dude! Please tell me you’re not here for Jane so I can put the Taser down because I don’t doubt _someone_ would have my hide if I electrocuted you. Certainly would be an awesome story to tell, some day, but seriously – please. Just… I don’t even know if this works on you, never tested in on super-soldiers but it knocked out a humanoid god-alien once so I’m going to go with: probably. And right now you were just so awesome and I’d hate to have to-“

He didn’t interrupt her, his posture still stiff, but his eyes swerved from her face towards Jane and then back to her again as if asking if they were alright and maybe she should have been concerned that The Winter Soldier did apparently want to know if they were alright – as if they were a mission – but instead Darcy swallowed, looking at Jane. “She’s just asleep.” She gestured. “She has a very weird sleeping cycle and I…” she swallowed again. “I have a back-up plan that’ll get us to America in like… twenty hours, if even. But really, just… thank you for taking down those asses-“

He nodded then, to himself, before he stepped away.

“Hey!”

Darcy – and she would later not be able to tell you why – stumbled after him, Taser still loosely clutched in her hand. The Winter Soldier stopped, assessing her form as she wobbled out of the VW. _In for a penny_ , she thought, tugging at her scarf and holding it out.

“Your, uh, mouth-thingy…” – muzzle, but she didn’t want to call it that, “… looks pretty banged up to me and uh, I probably won’t be needing this one once we’re in NY and I wondered…” she swallowed, offering the red tissue up to him: “Take it?”

He didn’t move at first and she wondered if maybe, finally, her lack of brain-to-mouth-filter during moments of panic would kill her – it hadn’t _yet_ but then she would have to run out of luck someday.

Instead he turned his body fully towards her, crossing his arms over his chest and she was certain that the twitch of his brow would have been a full-blown quirk of said part of his face if he hadn’t stopped it. She concluded that he wanted to know ‘why’.

Darcy hesitated, blank-faced, her eyes dropping to the long, bright, red scarf between them; subconsciously her shoulders rose to her ears – she would only notice later. “As a thank you?” she tried, uncertain eyes peeking at him from underneath her lashes. “I don’t know, but you kind of saved our lives here and your… your… _muzzle_ (god she hated that word) is destroyed. And… it’s not a… a muzzle (really hated that word) but it can cover your face and keep you warm. And it fits with your outfit? And the star? And… I don’t know. Take it or leave it.”

She’d gotten defensive the more she talked, fear did that to people she was well aware of that fact, although she wasn’t too sold on it being a good idea when faced with such proportions of super-soldier-ery as she currently was. Again she swallowed.

His hand reached out, the metal one, softly, pensively, taking hold of the other end of the scarf and for a breath or two his bionic digits moved as if feeling the tissue, before carefully, he extracted it from her hands and she let it slither carefully until it was entirely in his possession. His human hand came around his neck, unclasping the torn muzzle and she watched it drop soundlessly into the ground.

A part of the Winter Soldier succumbed to the snow of Norway as he raised his two hands and tied the scarf expertly around his neck and the lower half of his face – it fit him curiously well and Darcy fought a pleased smile.

Twenty hours later saw them safely on their way back to America; Avengers be damned – with HYDRA gunning for Jane, Darcy wasn’t taking any chances.

**

“Look, Janey, all I’m saying is that _if_ we’re getting mugged (and it’s been something of a regularity as of late) then we might as well do so with an Avenger-shaped backup-plan.” She huffed as she set down another carton-box filled with Jane’s duct-tape-machines. They worked, so don’t ever dis, but still: they were a mess.

Much as her scientist was at the moment. Jane gave her a harried stare that she had, heretofore, only seen on the pictures of the second world war – they’d called it the Thousand Yard Stare, shellshock; PTSD.

(Turned out Jane hadn’t much _slept_ through the ordeal at Norway much as succumbing to panic-induced unconsciousness and a small bump on her head due to Darcy’s driving skills – it was the first time that the intern regretted having chosen her gram to teach her the ways of the vehicle.)

“But- But… _Stark_?” she finally whined, her shoulders sagging. “You know how obnoxious he can be; with all that better-than-thou-attitude and his god-complex. _Please_ , Darcy, tell me you’ve thought of the repercussions.”

Darcy had mostly thought about all the tech she would, finally, be able to get her hands on – a working computer for one, and a company phone if she was being feisty. Admittedly though, she was aware how much Tony Stark would want to meddle – and she loved her Janey, she really did and that meant she was wary of anyone who wanted to meddle with her work.

So she only dipped her chin in a small nod. “I know that it would be a big decision Jane, but after that shit-storm in Norway I’d feel so much better if we had an actual, valid, back-up-plan instead of the half-cocked idea I come up with when bored.”

Granted, it had worked better than she’d hoped, but she suspected a Soldier-sized enabler if she were being honest. Not that she ever voiced her run-in with the unexpected saviour; for now James Buchanan Barnes was her little secret.

At this, thankfully, Jane sighed a little in understanding and Darcy hid her smile behind her scarf – purple, because the red one was hopefully resting around the neck of said rescuer – when her friend copied her nod. “I’ll think about it.”

Darcy wasn’t too surprised when they packed up again a week later.

**

As it turned out, Tony Stark could be magnanimous once he got what he wanted.

Accept Jane Fosters Forever-Intern as new part of the staff?  
Done without a blink.

Pay said intern, named Darcy May Lewis?  
Of course, money like hay’s gotta go somewhere.

Accommodation for the intern?  
Free rooming.

Darcy had to admit that she floated a little bit the first three days that it took Jane to set herself up in the lab-space she’d been allotted, just a removable glass-wall away from Bruce Banner himself and befitted with the newest technology and machinery that had Jane reluctantly part from her crafted-with-her-own-tears-sweat-and-blood-trinkets. She was unbelievably proud of her Janey’s decision.

Mostly though, she was happy about the pay she received. Because paying off her student-loans was hence a dream no longer and, in all actuality, done with the first pay-cheque she received. Never before had Darcy Lewis felt like a richer girl.

Free of student loans and no longer in need of second and third – odd – jobs to meet her monthly interest fees, she was even free to choose a lodging of her own. Not, to disabuse you of the notion, that the room allotted to her by Stark wasn’t everything she’d have needed. It was just that: everything she needed to live.

A room with a bed, a kitchenette, a bath and a TV and all that arranged oddly tastefully (despite its’ clinical aftertaste).

But Darcy had never before had a place of her own and if she were quite honest… she _wanted_ that. A place she could retreat to after work, separating work and private and maybe even try her hand at _living_ again. (She’d been good at it some time ago…) So she took up another loan, gleefully aware that she would be able to pay this one on time, and bought a small flat.

It was so small that buying it probably shouldn’t have been an option but it was big enough for Darcy and being well aware of the current political and financial status of her country, she wanted to be on the safe side and, in case of emergency, have some solid roofing over her head.

And that was how she acquired a flat in The Bronx.

Of all places it probably shouldn’t have come into consideration, but Darcy liked The Bronx; the mixture of cultures and the raucous way of living, the anonymity that came with living on (remotely) troubled streets. Also University Heights wasn’t all that bad, and rather close to Manhattan and its’ Avengers’ Tower.

Her personal room, a room on a mostly uninhabited floor (allegedly Captain America lived here but was currently out on a drawn-out mission) was used only for her to kip whenever Jane or the Science!bros had pulled one or several all-nighters and Darcy wasn’t even able to pull off her shoes before falling face-forward into the mattress.

(It happened more often than she would like to admit.)

But at least during the week-end, Darcy always had the pleasure of returning _home_ , cooking for herself while shaking it out to 80s Rock or float through her small flat listening to Ella Fitzgerald. She was really okay with that.

**

Darcy was happy for Jane finally having managed to make a connection within the world of science that was not with a person bent on stealing her ideas or her data. And she had been given compliments to have managed for Tony to be making any kinds of friends at all. And she was incredibly proud of Bruce… oh so proud that he would even allow himself close to other people (seriously, that man needed a hug like no one else).

There were, however, monumental consequences to have the three meet.

Once the scientists had managed to overcome the initial awkwardness that they were specialists in very different field of ‘real science’ (Darcy had long but accepted the fact that soft sciences simply made her wardens uncomfortable), their labs had turned out to become the home of the most unholy of Triads ever known to mankind. Darcy liked to call them her Science-Three, much to Thor’s merriment.

As much as they egged each other on in the most positive of way (and boy didn’t that do wonders for Tony’s ability to play in a team) the drawbacks could reach critical levels.

Much as they currently had.

Approximately three days ago (the lines blurred when you were intern to three scientists ‘on the verge of a breakthrough’) Bruce had made a discovery in a meteor: some kind of living gem apparently and since it came from heaven and beyond it fell into Jane’s roster so she’d been pulled into the orbit of the project without further ado. And where the two went Tony was never far behind – mostly because he was a nosy blighter (and also kind of genius). They’d hit off so quickly with their theses that Darcy had barely been able to keep up the steady supply stream of coffee and sweets (sugar and spice were the things these scientists ran on, all things nice).

When the sun had risen for the third time consequently without her Science-Three having taken a break for longer than an hour respectively, Darcy had to make a stand. The human body was not meant to go long periods without sleep while working at full capacity, not even those of the Enhanced.

And thusly Darcy had gently, but resolutely, pulled the good Dr Banner by his coat – he was rather docile all in all – tucked Jane into the arm left between her and Banner and then pulled Tony into a headlock that, tired as he was, he hadn’t even thought to twist out of.

Which brought her to her momentary situation:

As soon as they’d made it to elevator (and yes, it had been a bit of a fight, getting through the door), Stark had promptly slid to his knees, his head pillowed against her right hip, Janey draped over her left shoulder like the plaid over a Scotsman in Traditional Highland Garb and Banner was trying to merge with the metal-walls of the elevator.

To be honest, Darcy herself wasn’t quite as awake as she wanted to be, despite the fact that she’d taken longer breaks from work than her scientists, but her fucked up mockery of a sleep-cycle these last few days did nothing to quell the tiredness that crept up on her like a predator.

Her eyes were bleary, despite the glasses, and her head felt like cotton. Her legs and arms were cold and heavy, leaden even, and her throat felt tight with sleep. Everything about her felt heavy – well, _heavier_ considering two out of three scientists were mistaking her for a pillar of pillows at the moment. (She was so tired that even proper sarcasm escaped her.)

“Miss Lewis.”

FRIDAY’s calm voice interrupted her almost-snoozing and her head jerked up, realizing that the sudden flood of light came from the opening elevator-doors. She swallowed, wiping at her eyes and silencing the small voice in the back of her mind that reminded her of her mascara.

“Wait for me, yeah?” She muttered to the AI as she carefully dislodged Jane and coaxed Tony into something of a standing position.

Tony’s feet slurped against the carpeted floor of the hallway as they exited the small metal confines and he gurgled gibberish at her while fighting valiantly to put one foot in front of the other trying hard not to look drunk (he was far too good at that for it not to be disconcerting). Darcy barely paid attention when, finally, the door to one of his sleep-holes (small rooms strewn haphazardly all over the tower-levels for Tony to kip in whenever he didn’t feel like he could make it up or down a few flights) slid open to give way to a small, barely furnished room. She was gentle as she put him down on the mattress and even took off his shoes, tucking him in, before she turned.

The blinds of the window were already closing by then. “Make sure he gets at least seven hours of sleep?” she whispered to the AI as she made her way back to the elevator.

“Naturally.”

Back in the elevator Jane, as if she smelt her, leant forward again draping over Darcy’s shoulder and if she were honest Darcy was too knackered to care. In the corner of her eyes was a shadow that she couldn’t get rid of no matter how often she rubbed her eyes and it was annoying as hell when she thought about having to drop off two more of her scientists.

Bruce was rather easy because he only had to be woken and guided to his door before he let himself in and promptly plopped onto the couch, afghan curling loosely in his fingers before he executed a perfectly-practiced roll that any zoo-trained seal would be jealous of and successfully wrapped himself up. All she had to do was close the door; the rest took care of itself.

Jane, though, was easiest. Thor was already waiting for Darcy at the elevator and didn’t hesitate to carefully peel the astrophysicist from her back and guide her into his strong arms.

He didn’t dare talk for fear of waking his Lady Jane, but he gave Darcy a quick, silent smile and a nod in gratitude, before he stepped away, their Jane securely in his arms. Darcy envied her best friend and boss-lady for about the split of a second, before tiredness set back in and she shuffled in wait for her floor to finally come up – Cap’s floor. Right now she wasn’t too picky about denominations.

Her lids were heavy, her eyes gritty and she couldn’t even fathom how smudged the itty-bit of make-up she’d put on must be by now, considering how often she’d rubbed her hand over her face in order to stimulate circulation and keep her awake for at least the next minute. Rationally she knew that it was useless by now, but human habit was just that.

The shadow in the corner of her eye was now more pronounced and Darcy grumbled to herself as she shuffled out of the elevator once the doors opened and towards her own door.

**

Object Darcy Lewis – _unthreatening to his person, irrelevant to the mission_ – intern to Object Dr Jane Foster – _currently unthreatening to his person, relevant as intel-source_ – carefully slung her arm around Object Tony Stark – _threat level 6, relevant as intel-source and Avenger_ – in order to guide him out of the elevator. She didn’t even notice him, despite the fact that he stood right next to the door she had just exited and The Asset observed as she half-dragged, half-guided Object Tony Stark to a wall that, unprompted and much to his clandestine astonishment – _memorize location_ – slid apart before she vanished into the revealed room with the scientist.

As he stepped into the elevator, he found Object Dr Jane Foster herself, and Object Dr Bruce Banner – _status: threat level 10 as Hulk, relevant as intel-source and Avenger_ – in various states of exhaustion, leaning against the walls of the metal contraption. Object Foster was snoring slightly, her head tilted up awkwardly, baring her throat, whereas Object Banner himself barely made any sound at all.

Footsteps in the hall announced the return of Object Darcy Lewis, from wherever she’d gone with Object Tony Stark and The Winter Soldier strained his shoulders, waiting for the moment she’d notice him.

She didn’t.

Once Object Darcy Lewis had returned to her position in the elevator, the doors closed and Object Dr Jane Foster, slumped forward, draping herself over the shoulder of Object Darcy Lewis without fanfare or grace. The latter did not seem to mind and even went as far as to carefully lock her knees in order to withstand the additional weight.

She was tired, The Asset realised then, unmoving in his corner. The rings under her eyes were part mascara, part sleep-deprivation and considering her sluggish movements, he’d guess she had barely slept any longer than the scientists themselves had – _easy pickings_ – but then the elevator stopped again, and Object Darcy Lewis turned towards Object Dr Bruce Banner, to cajole him into a semblance of wakefulness, in which he was capable of motion.

Where she’d had to drag Object Tony Stark, Object Dr Bruce Banner seemed slightly more resistant to exhaustion and found himself capable of walking on his own and Object Darcy Lewis returned quicker than she’d had from where she’d put Object Tony Stark asleep.

The Winter Soldier cocked his head and it dawned on him that something about his assessment had been wrong; that maybe he’d been given false intel.

A few floors later, Object Darcy Lewis gladly passed over Object Dr Jane Foster to Object Thor Odinson – _threat level 10, relevant as Avenger_ – who, in return, offered something he’d learned to call a _genuine smile_ and nodded at him, before leaving.

Object Darcy Lewis rode to Object Steven Rogers – _threat level 8, relevant as Avenger and (former) Mission_ – level before she stumbled out of the elevator before him. The Asset hung back, observing.

She was too tired to even think of checking the perimeters, which started to bother the Winter Soldier a little as he watched her make her way towards a door he had only seen locked until now; but was now pleased to see her open. The inside revealed a small kitchenette and a bed further into the room, barely anything more and Object Darcy Lewis forsook the former for the latter without much dithering; dropping face-first onto her duvet.

Barely a second later her breath had evened out; her muscles lax.

The Winter Soldier cocked his head as he closed in on the Object. Something, still, didn’t sit right with the information he’d been given and he mulled over it as he stepped through the door, checking the perimeters she hadn’t bothered to, before he slid off her shoes and folded the rest of the duvet over her body.

He didn’t question his actions as he retreated from the room.

**

Darcy grumbled a little at the eggs in the pan before her, careful of the sugar she’d added: getting it to caramelize and mesh with the eggs instead of just burning up was a trapeze-act she wouldn’t, normally, have been up to in her current state. Not with the massive amount of sleep she lacked.

But Trevor Reznik had nothing on the wraith that was Tony Stark – or would be if it weren’t for Darcy’s recurring mock-renditions of Julie and Julia. Admittedly ‘Scrambled Sugar’ – yes, scrambled eggs with sugar, (NO RAGRETS) – wasn’t her best idea for her own figure, obviously. However considering the sheer amount of calories, it was precisely what a sleep-deprived and hell-bent-on-science-ing Tony Stark needed.

Naturally, she’d prepared a batch of ‘Hale and Healthy’ as well, but wasn’t too sold on Stark going anywhere near that – usually the plate was empty after it had lingered five minutes in the proximity of one Dr Bruce Banner. Tony was very much like she herself had been back in her college days: Work without pause and when you eat make sure it fuels your body for the next two days (i.e. coffee and carbs).

She’d prepared three litres of smoothies – one per scientist (and boy that was a lot of green-stuff) – fruits and vegetables for Bruce, muesli for Jane and her Scrambled Sugar for Tony.

As usual, however, she’d cut up too much food, scrambled too much egg and there was some left-over milk lingering in the corner of her working station; so when James Barnes appeared around the corner in all his bare-chested-low-riding-sweatpants-clad-glory (she did _not_ ogle; she was above that… she _appreciated_ ) just as she poured the Scrambled Sugar onto a plate, she gave him a wan smile and tilted her head towards the fruit.

“Free for the taking, Soldier.”

Her voice was scratchy and her she couldn’t tell if her hypertonia was because of her lack of energy-intake or because of the sight he made, but she could tell by his sudden stillness that he hadn’t expected to be talked to. His head turned, zeroing in on the fruit like he would on a target with a rifle (he was murderously adorable – if that was an option for describing a person).

“All good things; I promise.” She smiled when he didn’t move, but discarded him quickly in favour of covering the plates for her wardens and stacking them expertly on her arms (who’d known that working as a waitress would come in handy one day), fishing for her personal gallon of coffee.

She was out of the kitchen before he could even turn his head back towards her.

**

Something was definitely wrong with the intel he’d been given, he assessed as he watched the woman sashay towards the elevator which dutifully opened its’ doors without a moment’s hesitation.

The Asset turned back to the offered plate. Of course he’d been fed during his custody at the Avengers’ Tower; his guards were not picky with their offerings either, but the Soldier knew that they didn’t bother what he ate. He didn’t either.

Sustenance was sustenance and served to provide his physical form with the suitable amount of energy in order to work flawlessly.

However… there was _something_ in the back of his mind, staring with silent awe at the plate of fruit and vegetables ( _something_ he felt more comfortable ignoring) and he could easily say that this offering of sustenance was, until now, the most efficient he’d ever been given. The foods that Object Steven Rogers had him try were fine, laden with carbohydrates but fine and they served their purpose but… they lacked proper fibre, lacked diversity.Hesitantly he reached out to the plate, waiting for someone to turn up any moment and lay claim to the offering. Nobody came. Winter Soldier took a carrot.

He wondered about Object Darcy Lewis as he bit into the vegetable, quietly enjoying the crunch between his teeth as he pulled the plate closer to himself, about what she could possibly want from him. The Asset was certain that she had not realized his involvement in her sleeping-arrangement yesterday and yet the young woman had gone out of her way to reward him for something.

But what?

The Asset dug into the plate with grand gusto, knowing that if he didn’t eat within an acceptable amount of time, sustenance would be retracted and he did not know when he would be allowed the next ration.

Of course, Object Darcy Lewis could have been informed about his actions and she might have felt compelled to thank him for it. But then he was well aware that socially adept people would do so by a direct approach, especially Object Darcy Lewis, despite all his conditioning he was informed of and educated in the ways of the world (personally he employed them only in cases of necessity).

So that could not be it.

He saved the strawberries for last and didn’t question his skirting them until nothing else was left – The Asset was surprised to relish in the taste of the fruit.

If the woman was bribing him?

There was some credit to that hypothesis, he had to admit. Object Darcy Lewis worked with scientists and it might be that she had been sent to mollify him to an approach of said scientists, given that his current guards knew very well of his aversion to people in white coats (he remembered, dimly, to have attacked such a person, though he could not conjure up a face much to his displeasure).

The Asset cleared away the plate, deciding to keep an eye on Object Darcy Lewis. His intel had been seriously lacking.

**

_Mission: Reconnaissance on Object Darcy May Lewis_

_\-- Accepted_

**

The Winter Soldier was careful in his observation of Object Darcy Lewis. Logic told him that she was a mere civilian, it was hard to miss the cues on that front, but then so had his intel and it had turned out to be faulty.

On the probability of her being slightly more perceptive than he’d anticipated, Winter Soldier assumed three different personalities in order to run by the labs on a daily basis without being recognized and have a look at his Object additionally to him sacrificing his – _uncalled for_ – comfort and visiting Object Stark in his part of the lab.

Object Darcy Lewis was more than he’d previously been given to understand: when she was not busy converting stacks of papers into medially location-flexible documents, she would make certain that Object Foster, Object Banner and even Object Stark were suitably nourished and hydrated; going as far as to employ scare, anger and guilt tactics to get her way (she was positively devious in that endeavour, he had to concede with something akin to respect).

The woman barely spared him a second thought whenever he would be personally present in the lab of Object Stark, never going further than to greet him with a nod before laying into aforementioned Object for some reason or another. He was quickly becoming a fan of her efficacy.

She may be untrained, but she obviously harboured a natural talent. And he itched to encourage her. (Teach her… He knew he’d taken that role before. He knew he’d been successful.)

**

_Mission: Formation of Object Darcy May Lewis_

_\-- Awaiting Further Notice_

**


	2. Zwei

At least, she sighed as she trudged into the kitchen, Calliope wasn’t one to permanently spread herself thin among all three of her scientists – Lord knew she was only one Muse after all. Granted it was still more often than she liked, subjectively speaking, but then knowledge had to come from somewhere. And if the Muse wouldn’t visit her Science-Three she’d probably be out of a job too.

They were on day two currently and while she’d managed to catch _some_ shut-eye, she was well aware that Day Two was the most creative of the science-benders – she’d tried to google for a reason behind that once, but hadn’t been able to make sense of what she’d found.

Instead she’d postulated two hypotheses that, as of yet, remained untested:

One, being that the tired neurons in Tony’s brain allowed him to easier accept the input of his colleagues and therefore make them work like a proper team (if so then maybe she should bring this information to the Avengers…) –

Two, being that the collective brain matter of her Scientists went into overdrive from a fight-or-flight-reaction that sleep-deprivation was sometimes known to bring on.

Naturally she wasn’t a Doctor of anything, least of all Medicine, and also didn’t quite have the lab-connections to ask for clarification on that matter; so she couldn’t tell for sure. What she _could_ say for certain was that if she would be any longer delayed from ingesting something heavily caffeinated then Lord Help The World – not even the Avengers would be able to stop her from her rampage.

Pulling a cup from the corner of the lowest cupboard where she stored hers and Janey’s cups (and Tony’s but they never lost a word about it) she blindly groped for her secret stash.

Tony had equipped every surface serving the purpose of procuring caffeinated beverages with a fully automated machine that would recreate whatever one felt like having within the blink of an eye and no words and Darcy knew how to operate it. She did whenever Tony needed something but was either too lazy or too invested in his experiments to get his behind up and fix it himself.

But Bruce liked tea and Jane… Jane was peculiar about her coffee.

So was Darcy for that matter and while she herself preferred Turkish Coffee with just a hint of cinnamon, Jane went through so many French Presses that Darcy couldn’t even begin to count.

They’d compromised on Bialetti-coffee, dark as the tac-suit of the Black Widow and only slightly sweetened – finding a roast they both found tolerable had taken the better part of their friendship, but Darcy liked to believe that exactly this devotion to coffee and finding the right beans had been what had fused them together to a point where they considered each other sisters (that and the part where they went through hell together, but that was just a side act; life always was second to coffee).

She couldn’t find her box (if it was gone somebody was going to _pay_ ). Darcy opened her eyes, tilted her head back and, pushing her glasses straight, stared right into the abyss that was the cupboard (and yeah, you guessed correctly, it stared right back). The familiar metal box with the cute Vargas-Girl painted on it, the one she’d found in an Antique Shop in Europe, was gone.

The slow simmer within her reached a boil.

Darcy stared at the cupboard, her brows knitting as she inspected it closely, looking for the metal box because… maybe somebody just misplaced it (she’d be annoyed but at least her coffee would be _there_ ).

Busy inspecting the cupboard and keeping her angrily twitching fingers contained at her side, she didn’t notice the second person in the room at first. Where was her motherfucking-

A bottle appeared in front of her.

“Not coffee.” She grunted reflexively, glaring at the offending shape, before her eyes swerved towards the left and she finally noticed James Barnes.

His face was blank and his head tilted ever so slightly, as if he didn’t understand – and how could he, he hadn’t yet been her long enough to hear her rant about _coffee_ – but he didn’t move away from where he was propped up against the kitchen counter one of her hands was now tapping against.

Darcy ploughed on. “I _need_ it”, she argued, “ - Stark, Banner and Jane are fucking driving me nuts with their science-bender and so help me God if I don’t get something that will keep me awake for at least the next three hours, there will be bloody hell to pay.” She might imagine the twitch on his brow. “And where the fuck is my Vargas-Coffee-Girl? Like seriously the roast in the box is at least as valuable as the box itself and gorram-it if it doesn’t turn up-“

He pushed the bottle closer to her.

Darcy’s tirade stopped as she took in his tense shoulders (he was topless, again, and what was it with super-soldiers and _T-Shirts_ ; didn’t they have them in 1940?!) and his carefully blank face.

“That for me?”

A nod.

Hesitantly she reached for it, uncapping the bottle and sniffing at it – she couldn’t tell what it was by just looking at it; judged by the colour it could have been a sincerely tall Latte Macchiato or almost a Hot Chocolate, but the smell spoke of something grainy, something heavy. “Is that a protein shake?”

She didn’t know whether or not to be incredulous – how the hell was a protein shake supposed to replace _coffee_ – but didn’t put the bottle down just yet.

Another nod.

And then it clicked: because technically she’d asked for something to keep her awake the next three hours and the right proteins could do just that. She considered it for a moment, before levelling a dangerous look at the motionless Ex-Assassin.

“You better not have doctored this or I’ll make an example out of you. Wear your skin like Hercules wore the Nemean Lion…”

(In hindsight she should have known better. She hadn’t gotten this much done in one night ever since she’d first discovered Red Bull.)

**

He was there a week later, when Bruce unearthed the notes about the living-meteor-gem and cracked another mystery with a little help from his friends – which promptly led to another five-day-science-bender (she really had to learn to put her foot down; they were getting _sneaky_ ) – pushing a protein-shake and an apple at her, word- and shirtless.

For some reason this became a ritual.

Darcy would be busy running herself to the ground in order to watch out for her Science-Three – either respectively or collectively – and would usually forget to consume anything of true sustenance until the call for caffeine would overwhelm her and she’d find her feet walking the rest of her body towards the kitchen.

And, without fault, James Barnes would be there, waiting with a protein shake and a healthy snack at first, before it would become a gallon of water and a protein-bar. On bad nights – i.e.: night-three of ‘we’re on the breakthrough, Darcy’ – he would carefully hand her the largest cup the vast cupboards of the kitchens could cough up and she would never fail to notice that he’d brewed her Mate-tea; to perfection.

Her Vargas-Girl-Coffee-Box returned, stuffed to the brim with the smoothest Selamlique she’d ever had the pleasure of introducing to her taste-buds (seriously, she was ruined for anything else); but with Barnes pushing water and a protein-bar at her those nights when she would stumble into the kitchen, she quickly dialled her consummation down to one cup of delicious Turkish Coffee in the morning (even Jane noticed).

He didn’t talk to her, the most she got out of him were monosyllabic motions with the head – a nod, a tilt, an eye-roll on one memorable occasion – but he didn’t stop her ramblings either. And so she’d take a few sips in front of him, rambling, unloading more often than not, before going right back to handling her scientists.

She never questioned how he knew of her days (it felt superfluous considering she shared her working-place with spies and assassins; one of which was renowned for crawling vents).

**

When he noticed it, the exchange appeared so smooth and careless that he wondered how long it had been going on to have gained such an unguarded air about it.

He knew Darcy Lewis only by virtue of her being lauded by three of his team-members. Thor would praise her as a fine warrior in her own rights and fondly call her his ‘Lightning Sister’ – he got behind the jest eventually and stopped looking out for a potential ally. Tony would casually mention her in one breath with the words ‘nuisance’ and other choice expletives that he didn’t care to retain and Bruce would keep silent about the Intern, but never without a fond expression on his face whenever she was mentioned.

Such was to say, that night – for it was night at barely two in the morning – when a down-trodden young woman with raven hair trudged into the Commons’ Kitchen, he would not have expected Thor to perk up next to him.

The young woman gave a tired smile and a half-hearted wave towards his companion, but made a bee-line for the kitchen-counter, which had Steve straighten from his position on the fauteuil.

Because Bucky was in the kitchen.

He’d been silently puttering away there ever since they’d returned from their late-night-session with Sam and, giving him his space, Steve had decided to venture into the Common Room itself, always seated in a way that would allow easy access to the kitchen should such a thing be necessitated. As, it would seem, it would be in a few moments.

Carefully glancing behind him, he was surprised to find Bucky easing up from his position, but otherwise barely react to the presence of the presumably foreign person in the kitchen – if his eyes didn’t trick him (and they hadn’t since 1941) the muscles in the back of his friend even went as far as to smooth out ever so slightly.

Bucky stepped back from the counter, allowing the slight woman access to whatever was stood before him and Steve could not stop the befuddled noise escaping his throat when she appeared to grab a bottle of water that had already been standing there (waiting for her?).

Her mouth was working rapidly and despite the fact that Steve didn’t bother to listen in to whatever she was saying he could tell that she was unleashing a veritable _flood_ of information – while standing opposite of The Winter Soldier. Bucky handed her a protein-bar, the crinkle of the aluminium betraying the treat and the young woman gave him a tired, but genuine, smile. One he didn’t return, but she didn’t let that deter her.

Not done with her tirade, she paused only momentarily to take a sip of the water he’d given her, before continuing.

“- and I swear to god Tony fried at least twenty of his bots today trying to access that bloody gem, but nothing works and Jane started to run calibrations – which are still running by the way, but my eyes can’t take the rapid run-down of numbers anymore, I swear to _Frigga_ I am having Matrix-Vision-“

She had a sweet voice, slightly rough from disuse and heavy with sleep, belying a hint of smokiness – it resembled the voice of a stage-singer from a bar that Bucky and Steve had liked to frequent before the war; Bucky had likened her voice to wine back then: rich, velvety, with just the hint of oak-barrel (Steve had called bull, but he could understand it now…)

Thor caught his attention with one of his thousand-watt-smiles. “Is it the Lady Darcy has caught the attention of your friend, Steven?”, he asked good-naturedly.

Steve zoned in on the bright smile of the blond warrior: “That is Darcy?” he asked, resisting the reflex to throw a thumb over his shoulder; such things were not to be done when talking about a woman (no matter the company). “I have never met her before.” He admitted then and turned, taking her in once more.

The young woman was in the process of giving Bucky a small wave and a tired smile as she turned, making her way back to the elevator with a little more spring to her step than had been there when she’d entered the kitchen. He had imagined her to look different…

“That she is.” Thor agreed, the smile audible in his voice. “She is in the profession of assisting the Science-Three in their endeavours to reach heretofore unknown heights of comprehension.”

Steve turned to his team-member again. “She’s a lab-assistant?” he tried to clarify, but Thor shook his head.

“Nay.” The god disagreed. “As my Sister explained it, she is not in the habit of attempting science herself, but engages rather selflessly in the most noble battle of wills against My Lady Jane and our Shield-Brothers when it comes to the matter of taking rests and accepting sustenance. She is very cunning at this and has earned herself my respect, for not even I can tempt My Lady Jane to consume anything but knowledge and numbers once she has it in her mind to unlock the mysteries of your world.”

He turned to have another look at Bucky: his friend busied himself with wiping down the counter, even though Steve was almost convinced that it had been spotless before Darcy Lewis had entered the premises and a small frown tugged at his lips.

Bucky had made leaps and bounds in the last few weeks… and he wondered if that hadn’t been for this. He didn’t deny the fact that having Bucky interact with anyone else than him and Sam was a good thing, especially given the harmless nature of their encounter, but throwing in a dame of the Darcy Lewis calibre (if any of the stories were even remotely true) could easily upset the balance that his friend was currently fighting tooth and nail to regain.

**

So Steve settled to observe the two – the young intern Darcy Lewis and his best friend Bucky Barnes – as they did their weird little dance of protein-shake, one-sided-conversation and a small snack. It never did progress past this small interaction and a little voice in his head had started to call him all sorts of names for looking at such an innocent thing with the amount of animosity that he harboured.

He had been close to agreeing to this voice, close to allowing them lee-way, maybe even telling Sam about it – _talking_ to him about it, see what they could do for Bucky to solidify this strange friendship – when came the day on which The Claxon sounded and everything they’d worked on went to hell in a handbasket with a pretty bow on it.

The Claxon had been an invention of Tony, after he’d realized that having one and the same alarm-bell for every sort of incident, as diverse as they shaped up to be, was maybe not productive to a healthy living-together. And so the engineer had come up with different Alarms for pretty much every scenario (Pepper had been needed to put an end to Tony’s never ending list of scenarios that all needed their own alarms).

Of course afterwards there came the many (many, many, many) sleepless nights when Tony had felt the need to train their reaction time to the different alarms, run tests with them to a point where even Steve – who could get behind the necessity of ingraining the reaction until it would become second nature – had raised his hands and admitted defeat in the face of grumpy team-members (Pepper had been in Malibu at that point and couldn’t be reached).

But The Claxon had one very definite purpose: rally the Avengers to defend the labs.

Steve cursed, reaching for his shield and jogged towards the nearest armoury, glad that Tony sometimes got bored and had a little too much money on his hands. Bucky was at his left shoulder by default; the only thing marking him as a different man from the one who’d taught him how to lead the Howling Commandos was the bright red scarf that he tied around his neck and lower face with smooth movements.

(He didn’t know if he liked the scarf; it was an upgrade to the muzzle… but still represented too much of the Winter Soldier Persona to the blonde)

The coms slipped into their ears with practiced movements, and Steve took over the reins with practiced ease.

“Labs are compromised.” Barton informed; his voice echoed strangely and The Captain assumed he was hiding out in a vent. “Access Restricted. Force consists of 15 Muscles and a Brain at the wires.”

That explained the restricted access. “Stark?” he grunted, as he fished for a Glock, slipping it into his utility belt. Bucky’s movements next to him barely registered, but he knew that his friend went for a rifle; the sharp-shooter prevalent in him.

“On it.” --short; to the point; The Captain knew he could rely on his team-member to reverse the effect as quickly as possible.

“Status report.” He moved out of the room, Bucky glued to his side as he strapped the last of his weapons to his body (The Captain registered with slight dismay that The Winter Soldier had chosen to go for two guns and a plethora of knives additionally to the Dragunov).

“Banner is in containment.” Widow’s voice crackled in his ear; he released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Hulk on the premises was a dangerous thing; especially around civilians when the offensive force wouldn’t hesitate to hail bullets (and they never did; not when faced with large, green and angry). “He’s dealing. Science personnel all accounted for.”

The Captain nodded to himself, taking a deep breath as he flew down the stairs – barely two flights away. “Stark can you keep them from accessing FRIDAY?”

A curse flittered through the coms, followed closely by a cackling hiss that reminded the team-leader of the kiss shared between two live copper-wires; he really hoped Stark knew what he was doing. “FRIDAY has locked down. No matter what their Brain gets it’s all wibble-wobble, nothing of value.”

For a moment The Captain faltered in his movements, trying to integrate the last piece of information into his rapidly forming plan of attack. “So what’s that mean for us? In and out, smooth and silky?”

(One day, maybe, he would get rid of Dum-Dum’s questionable war-jargon, but today was not that day.) Widow clucked her tongue. “Would that we could, Cap – but they _do_ have a hostage.”

His strides lengthened. “Didn’t you just tell me the science personnel were safe?” he snapped. “Who?”

“Darcy Lewis.” Barton responded in Widow’s stead. “Intern to Dr Foster. She’s the reason Bruce and the science personnel are behind glass. She managed to take out five Muscles by herself, but she’s currently getting more than she bargained for…”

His heart stuttered with unidentified sentiment as the name resounded through the coms and before he could answer, Bucky had moved past him, swerved his body over the last banister with a swoop of his arm and dropped through the remaining levels with deadly precision; his landing softer than that of a cat. Alarm Bells sounded in The Captain’s head and he cursed.

“Heads up; Soldier incoming.”

Shots fired as he pursued his friend, dropping the same few levels and raising his head to see what was happening: wishing he hadn’t.

Where Tony would have opened the glass panels that had separated the labs from the rest of the Tower in a few moments, The Winter Soldier had taken a more direct approach – unhindered by any of the Avengers who had stuck to their spots, waiting for their Commander – and, after weakening the glass with bullets, bulldozered right through it (and boy he knew whose pay-check was going to suffer that particular blow).

The element of surprise was clearly on his side and the fifteen Muscles too busy crowding around the limp form of the black-haired woman had barely had the time to rotate their heads properly on their necks before they were snapped by ruthless hands. The Captain knew when he’d lost a battle and was well aware that trying to stop The Soldier now would only result in more – unnecessary – casualties; he cursed the woman.

“Stand down.” He grunted angrily at his team. “Get me Wilson and the Med-Team.”

“On my way, Cap.”  
(Sam had been out of the Tower – enjoying his day off; The Captain was surprised to actually have him already within range already)

A few gun-shots later The Winter Soldier remained the last one standing, his imposing figure looming over the battered form of one Darcy Lewis, the breeze from the compromised window (at least now they knew how their opponents had entered in the first instance) tugging at the bright red-scarf that still covered the lower half of his face.

The Captain eased up on his own position, shoulders tense as he neared the scene – The Soldier waited for a few beats before lowering one knee and pressing three of his fingers to the neck of the motionless form. His throat clogged briefly at the sight of black-clad shoulders _dropping in_ _relief_ and The Winter Soldier receding enough for a flesh-hand to pull down the scarf from his face as he carefully coaxed the unconscious body into stable side position, fingers flittering to assess the damage done.

FRIDAY came back online with a soft buzz of electricity – the glass-doors to the containment cells opening with a soft _squee_ , giving way to a dainty woman, spilling with great anxiety towards Darcy Lewis.

She didn’t bother to look at either Bucky or himself, and by the way her eyes traced the contours of the woman on the ground he also didn’t need to be filled in as to her name: no doubt this was Jane Foster; Thor’s woman, the astrophysicist, Lewis’ boss. Her eyes clung to Bucky’s scarf for a bare moment, before she settled on the ground, mindless of the bodies strewn around her and went to card her fingers through Lewis’ hair.

(Bucky’s own fingers twitched.)  
Med couldn’t come soon enough

**

Jane didn’t leave Darcy’s side for even a moment. Her intern would have cracked a joke at Thor’s expression when he finally laid eyes on her, would have called it ‘thunderous’ and cackled like a mad-woman about the bad pun, never mind that it had been overdone time and time again. The astrophysicist swallowed the lump in her throat as she inspected the bruises rapidly blooming on her friend’s face, upper body, and lower arms.

They were already swelling, colouring the usually alabaster skin in bright red and purple spots, like a travesty of a Dalmatian and for a moment the air blocked in her throat, but she pushed through it; her eyes swerving from the beaten body of Darcy.

Her vision erred around before settling on the bright red scarf around the neck of the man who’d saved Darcy and who was still crouched over her. She knew that man, or at least she thought she did, there was a vague memory tickling her from the back of her mind, something about him was familiar despite the fact that she could positively say that she’d never crossed paths with him during her stay at the Tower.

More importantly however, she knew that scarf.

Jane was positive that the swathe of bright red tied around the corded neck of the man who’d swooped in right before Captain America was 80% Pashmina and 20% Wool, had a speck of dirt on one of its’ corners and a tear somewhere in the middle from where it had caught in a zipper once; she was certain that, the last time she’d seen it, it had been wrapped around Darcy’s neck.

(Norway, Tromsø … not thinking about _that_ …)

**

She didn’t wake until two days later and Jane had to admit that those two days must have shaved at least twenty years off her life – naturally she didn’t voice those thoughts once Darcy opened her eyes (because going by that logic her intern-come-assistant-come-friend-see-sister probably ‘lost’ half of her life what with the shit she went through with Jane) but it was a close thing.

Darcy was cognizant and sitting upright, despite the fact that the assigned nurse had warned her that should she experience any feeling of dizziness to better lie back down – or puke; whichever one it was (‘but please, and I cannot stress this enough, _press the red button in any case_ ’ – Jane assumed this speech came from a long time of dealing with very reluctant patients in the form of heroes) when the astrophysicist came back from her first potty-break from the bedside.

All in all her friend was as well as could be expected: the bruises angry and violently contrasting with her skin, one of her eyes swollen shut and her bruised lip making a good rendition of a Botox-fail; Darcy even had a little lisp (apparently she’d bitten off a piece of tongue), a few cracked ribs, bruised knuckles from where she’d tried to fight back and bandaged arms – but she was alive.

And Jane could not be more thankful for the strange man who had come crashing through glass like a stampeding elephant in a HYDRA-china-shop.

(She had her hypothesis, all that was left to do was test it – but now was not the time…)

As _the_ most regular visitor, Jane quickly put herself in charge of organizing the constant influx of get-well-wishes; most of them hailing from the Science-Lab (Bruce’s potted lavender was by far Darcy’s favourite). But then Jane was witness to Darcy receiving a gift of unparalleled worth that was equal parts cute as it was strange:

Darcy May Lewis was gifted with a Bullet Taser.

A bona-fide, Stark-Tech (those red-golden colours didn’t come from nowhere) Bullet Taser that didn’t rely on cartridges, but instead on non-lethal bullets that could hold a fuck-ton of volts. They’d even went as far as to test it on Thor, who’d been a curious smidgen too happy to be the guinea pig, and he’d dropped dead like a sack of potatoes only to resurface with the world’s biggest grin on his face and declare the weapon worthy of his Lighting Sister (Darcy bragged that now people couldn’t tell her that she hadn’t _really_ tased a god because he’d been powered-down the first time around).

Therefore, once Darcy was back on her feet again, Jane, too, was the one to accompany her down to Tony’s labs – the Taser clicked into an inconspicuous holster at her hip.

Tony took one look at them and shook his head. “No thanking me for things I didn’t create.” He snarked good-naturedly, waving into Darcy’s general direction. “I wish I had, but The Soviet Snowflake got the drop on me.”

Jane stilled with the news; Darcy was oddly calm. “He made this for me?”

The billionaire gave her a look that was a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “Spent a day and a night picking apart your old one and then created… _this_ out of scrap-metal he picked off me. If ever he snaps out of it long enough I’m going to propose a part-time-lab to him, gramps’s not half as bad…”

It was high praise coming from Tony Stark and Jane couldn’t help but envision the man she’d seen take out fifteen hired mercenaries in order to assure her friend’s survival stoically commandeering a working space in Tony’s lab and tinkering away at the handheld device until he knew it well enough to improve it and create a new one from scratch.

They left it at that and Jane wondered at the silent acceptance of Darcy, who, she couldn’t help but notice, settled her hand somewhat fondly over the hilt of her new weapon.

(With her hypothesis proven, Jane decided that if he went such lengths for Darcy then she didn’t give a fuck about the horror stories that ranked around his name like bad weed in a garden – no matter how much truth there may be to them.)

**

Darcy had never really meditated over the consequences of being ‘the best gal’ of pretty much the whole science department; but a week after she’d been released from medical she could attest to the fact that _every_ girl on this planet should have at least two, maybe even three, genius-scientist-friends.

Socially inadaptable they might be, but boy the _drugs_!

And she didn’t even mean the ‘Oh-My-God-I’m-Hurting-Knock-Me-The-Fuck-Out’-aspect. Granted it was a venue one should always keep open, but then: if they could knock you out, what kept them from speeding up your recovery?

She felt healthy; she looked healthy – and Bruce’s scans had confirmed the fact that a week later, her fissures had healed, her haematoma had not just receded but vanished entirely and she would not suffer _any_ sort of long-term effect from the incident in the labs a few days prior.

Jane had allowed her to express her gratitude for a whole day, before deciding that letting Darcy May Lewis loose on the science department, heart overflowing with love, happiness and gratitude was maybe not the best way to go.

So when Clint Barton knocked on her door, Darcy had almost been convinced that Jane had sent him as her new security detail.

He seemed a little disgruntled, and a smidgen embarrassed given the hand that came up to scratch at the back of his neck, but mostly… resigned. His unoccupied hand extended: “Dress comfortably and meet me in the Training Room. I give you five minutes; it should take you two.”

The archer was gone before she could properly respond (it was _Friday_ for goodness sakes; this was her night _off_!) and despite her grumbling and heavy-handed treatment of the furniture in her room, she was in the Training Room four minutes and thirty-two seconds later (the asshole timed her).

Her sweatpants dangled loosely around her feet, the string drawn tight around her hips and a black non-descript shirt tucked into it. Barton probably didn’t even know her name (remember more like; he was the one who almost shot her in Puente Antigua) – but he also didn’t make too much of a fuss about her appearance. Instead, he positioned himself in front of her and looked her over.

“Put your right foot slightly forward, keep your hips parallel to me and ease your centre back until you can safely say that you’re standing balanced.”

Darcy would have liked to tell you that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but she was an honest kind of girl and Clint Barton put her through hell and she hated him for it. At the end of the evening (around the time she would, usually, have finished watching a movie and would be well underway of setting the mood for some me-time) she was flushed and out of breath for all the wrong reasons.

Not, admittedly, that she didn’t appreciate what was being done here, because obviously after what had happened in the labs, she could use the technique and the training, and she liked sports (she just never had the time to make it a standing appointment so to speak) – in many parts it was just… Barton.

He didn’t even looked warmed up or remotely challenged by her (Thor but she hated him) – but he nodded at her when they were done, and motioned for her to sit down so he could help her stretch out her muscles (she was more flexible than he’d anticipated and for a second he almost lost his equilibrium before he recalibrated; she didn’t even try to hide her satisfied smirk).

Due to the impromptu training session she was positively knackered when she finally stumbled through the front door of the brown-stone she’d bought her apartment in – no movie tonight. A little bit of TLC (because damnit she had _earned_ it tonight) and then the best night’s rest she had all week. For a moment she contemplated taking the stairs, she was only four flights up and on any other Friday she just might have, but her legs ached something grievous and she sincerely didn’t want to jinx it – which meant she waited for the lift.

And it was a good thing too, she mused when she arrived on her level to see a small package sitting innocently on her door-mat – from afar she couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but given her week it might as well have been an explosive.

It turned out to be tea.

The very nice kind as well – the kind of tea she hadn’t had in what felt like ages and only knew because she’d been in England with Jane and you didn’t just go to England without trying out their tea. She’d fallen in love with their leaves and proper etiquette in ‘preparing a cuppa’ (Ian had been very helpful in her endeavour to learn the way of the leaf) but hadn’t come around to buy herself a stash of her preferred brand – Dark Elves made a hash out of _everything_.

Putting the box to her nose, she took a whiff and smiled secretively, the hint of lemon that was so unique to these tea-leaves spurring her synapses into relaxation and contentment – a smile tugged at her lips as she closed her eyes, allowing the sensations to wash over her.

 _Somebody_ (she had a good idea who) had gone out of their way to reward her for enduring training sessions with Barton – or at least make certain that she had a nice thing for herself after having been through the grinder for almost two hours. It was a thoughtful gesture, if a little new – a little out of their comfort zone.

(Was it weird if it made her heart flutter ever so slightly?)

Her keys clinked metallically as she fished them out of her pocket, fumbling blindly for the one that would open her door, the packet of tea still stuffed into her face (she really didn’t want to lose the heavenly scent even one moment). The door opened before her as she twisted the metal and she entered – smile slowly broadening as she stepped in and let the door fall closed behind her.

She would set the mood.  
She would have herself a merry little time.  
And she would then have herself a damn good cup of tea.

Darcy smiled openly and shrugged out of her coat – Operation: Make It The Best Evening Of The Week was a go.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I hit a streak? Because you lovely people wouldn't stop encouraging me and I'm on holidays as it is and... well, if you got time on your hands and comments warming your heart all the love's gotta go somewhere.


	3. Drei

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't prepared for all the love on the Bullet Taser XD 
> 
> **

As other things before, this – too – became regularity.

Barton – Clint, as he offered three weeks later – would come fetch her every Friday and Tuesday once her official working hours were over, never mind the situation in the labs, and steal her away for two hours of either working her body into a shape that was anything but round or putting up targets and have her get used to her newly acquired Bullet Taser when she’d admitted to him that hitting things from further than a four foot distance was unfamiliar for her.

If any of her wards would still be working in the labs and she’d therefor have to return there for the sake of her profession as scientist-wrangler, her protein-shake and apple would wait on her working station along with an extra cup of tea. There would be no sign of James Barnes himself, but she knew that no one else would think of delivering said goods to her and Darcy had come to accept this new addition to their interactions. Those blissful nights she _could_ return home, her treats would wait on her doormat: a protein-bar and a packet of ‘real’ tea (she’d always wanted a sophisticated selection but had never come around to start one; she was charmed to realize that she was starting one now).

He would still wait for her in the Common Room’s kitchen whenever she pulled all-nighters for the sake of her Science-Three with a gallon of water, a protein-bar and a small one-sided chat and they never really acknowledged the fact that he had somehow managed to drag Clint into training her for CQC and marksmanship or would leave extra treats for her for after those training sessions; it was there all the same. And Darcy found herself enjoying it.

What was more, she got the feeling that the man in question himself found himself… not too averse to what they were building. However delicate and unconventional it was, it was a sort of fixed point for him that he could concentrate on. Something not for or about himself, something that didn’t demand jack from him – she got the feeling he had needed such a thing (but it was another one of those subjects that they never acknowledged).

It was slow-going that night and Darcy mostly busied herself working off the pile of Science-Scribbles her wards had left lying around the labs in no particular order. She had them colour coded and time-stamped in order to be able to digitalise them perfectly chronological and was quite proud of the dent she’d managed to make in her To-Do-Pile as she allowed herself a small pause.

Tony was busy tinkering away with something – still Day One and not looking too important so it was safe to say that he would find his way into the bed alone, she still stuck around just to be certain – and she stood, stretching her arms upwards to release the tension in her spine when the door opened.

Not expecting any visitors, Darcy swirled, feet automatically sliding slightly apart the way Clint had shown her – his eyes were oddly satisfied as he took in her stance.

“Good Lord, Barnes.” She exhaled. “This has to be the fourth time your Sneaky Ninja Walking is making me flirt with a cardiac arrest.” She put her right hand over her heart for dramatic purposes.

He didn’t react but she could tell that he had caught on to her sarcasm (do not ask her how, she really wasn’t into introspection where James Barnes was concerned, don’t push it). Instead, he waited for her.

Darcy gave a tiny smile. “What can I do for you?”

There was a curious… hesitancy that shone through his body language for a second and for the same amount of time that it was there, Darcy was worried. But then it vanished and his posture solidified into something expectant as he moved halfway out of the door again, standing in the open doorway.

She tilted her head – he wanted her to come with him, she got that but… where? What for? His posture didn’t change, and neither did his silence, or his expectancy; he was calm, patient, artfully resolved for someone who had been so blatantly nervous about the whole thing just mere moments before.

Her head turned towards Tony’s segment of the labs and finding him still immersed in his work, she turned her head back to the top-less (she had a hypothesis) soldier. “Yeah, I can make time.”

James Barnes didn’t smile; his face was a careful mask of blankness and she wondered if someone had ever tried to paint him like a Geisha (just for the heck of it), but his shoulders relaxed minutely in a way that told her he’d been holding his breath. Darcy exited her cube before waiting on him in the hallway. “Where we goin’?”

He led her down to her training room and – for the barest split of a second she panicked that _he_ would want to have a go at her – before she noticed the target further down the room and relaxed. She’d gotten better at hitting stuff, nowhere near Clint (obviously; that man could wear a blindfold and still make his hits), but she found that it relaxed something in her.

Coming to a halt just in line of the mark, he bent a little retrieving a slip of a black something; so small that he could hide it in the palm of his (okay, she’d never looked but she could now say) admittedly large hand ere he turned to her and uncurled his fingers again, presenting her with a smooth black dagger.

Personally she blamed Clint for her recent fascination with weaponry because, let’s face it, the guy had a pretty impressive arsenal and Darcy, curious parakeet that she was (his words), loved to explore it. And while Clint would – after showing her the proper handling – allow her to hold whatever weaponry she’d discovered, they would always train with a gun, or a mockery thereof, since her Bullet Taser closely resembled one.

But this was a throwing knife and while she’d been allowed to hold one, she’d never actually _thrown_ one before.

Reverently she plucked the small, lithe blade from his palm (rough and warm where her finger-tips chanced over it) and inspected it thoroughly, turning it several times in her own fingers before looking up to him with, what she assumed was, no little hope shining in her eyes.

She _wanted_ to wield this baby the way it was supposed to be done.

He was waiting for her, watching her with something _new_ in his eyes that she didn’t yet know on him (she wasn’t entirely certain she’d ever been looked at like this in her entire life, to be quite honest) – but there was a similar blade dangling from his own fingers and once he had ascertained that he had all her attention, he lifted his arm.

Darcy copied him, making certain to mimic his motion as precisely as she could and while he stopped several times to correct her posture, he also seemed content to go with her approach. Clint usually liked to finish his demonstration before he started on her, but Darcy always felt a little weird, un-autonomous, like a puppet on strings (but she wouldn’t tell him that yet).

It took a few tries until he was satisfied with the parabola of her aim – but once she’d consciously registered how her body moved and felt whenever she made a hit, it didn’t take her too long to stop hitting the wall behind their target and, instead, hit the target.

She could work with that (so could he, by the looks of it).

They spent time, taking turns aiming at the target and now and then he would correct her posture, almost like an afterthought, but he didn’t talk and his touches were minimal. She’d never thrown knives before but… she had _fun_ – and their interlude ended sooner than she would have liked.

Two hours later she was well aware that her aim with her right arm was way better than with her left arm – which tired earlier and for which she continuously overcompensated, it was a little frustrating honestly – but she _could_ hit a target.

As they exited the training room and he made a move to part from her then and there, Darcy stopped abruptly, seeking his eyes and giving him a smile when he lifted his from where he’d glued them to the ground to meet hers. “Thank you.” She said softly. “I actually had fun.”

For a moment he looked startled and she realized that he hadn’t expected her to say anything, least of all to thank him for this – but she didn’t back down from her statement, and instead underlined it with another, larger, smile.

He nodded and lowered his head a little, his longish hair swinging forth, hiding his face ever so slightly – but not enough to hide the tug at his lips – before he turned.

(Darcy _melted_.)

**

Ever since he’d begun watching them, Steve had started to keep extra tabs on Darcy Lewis.

He could tell that she was a dedicated woman, her sacrifice for the safety of the science department would have told him that if nothing else – but it went beyond that. Because while she had done that – and probably would do so again without a second thought to it – she was also up and about barely a week later, taking care of feeding the Science department and keeping them caffeinated and organized.

She shooed the day-breakers out of their seats once their time in the labs was done, but stuck around for Tony, Bruce and Dr Foster who continued working as if shifts had never been invented. Darcy rolled with the punches.

If Tony was cranky because he was on his third day of what he’d learned to call a ‘science-bender’ (it took him a little, but he came to understand the reference) she would be there with something small to eat and a large cup of coffee; if Bruce was on a short fuse because he’d had too little sleep, she would be there with a cup of tea and a plate of fruit that would calm the man right down and if Dr Foster was yelling abuse at another machine, Darcy would be there with a cup of coffee, calming words and a quick solution.

But tonight was hard even on her.

Steve could clearly see the rings underneath her eyes that had nothing to do with smudged mascara and read the exhaustion in every line of her posture when she trudged into the Common’s kitchen.

Bucky watched her with Argus Eyes as she guzzled down the whole gallon in front of him, before she even made a grab for the protein bar – he watched her devour that too, concern slowly edging into his eyes.

Steve could see where it came from, because not once did Darcy try to make conversation.

She was silent from the moment she entered the kitchen and would probably have exited it as silently as she’d come, if it wouldn’t have been for Bucky calmly reaching out to hand her a large cup of tea.

Darcy’s eyes lit up for a split second – as glassy as they were – before she lifted them and gave him a tired smile. “You are currently saving my ass in so many ways, dude.” Weariness oozed through her lips, her voice smokier than was usual, almost like gravel, but Bucky’s worry bled out of his shoulders. He gave her a nod – one that she returned, before returning to her spot in the labs, the large cup of tea securely in her hands.

Normally he’d have thought that this would be the last he’d see of her, considering that her job was to keep the scientists in line, but Bucky was restless beyond his usual norm which in turn put Steve on edge and consequently kept them awake and in the Common Room until it was easily three in the morning.

By then Bucky’s constant twitching and fumbling around with this or that appliance had died down, his movements calmed and his breath eased – he gave Steve a non-descript look that conveyed a sort of thanks and despite the fact that he couldn’t help but wish for the plethora of words Bucky would have unleashed on him in earlier days, he was fine with this too.

It wasn’t until they stood in the elevator, that Steve asked himself if maybe Bucky had developed a sixth sense for the intern because as soon as they’d boarded the metal entrapment, there she was, surrounded by a bunch of barely conscious scientists in various states of exhausted rest with Darcy herself barely holding on to wakefulness.

The scene reminded Steve of a zombie-walk that Natasha had taken him on, once (it had been on his list and she’d been the one who’d wanted to introduce him to the pleasures of glaring down a zombie) and he watched with grudging admiration as the younger woman settled each scientist in their abodes respectively. She _was_ something.

Bucky, next to him, shifted a little closer towards her once she returned alone to the elevator and Steve tensed for the barest second, assessing the situation and finding that she wasn’t in trouble – despite presenting an easy target.

He was surprised when FRIDAY rode them to his level and Darcy _exited_.

The confusion must have shown on his face, because Bucky turned and glared at him as if daring him to question the presence of the tired young woman – Steve had known better than to argue with Bucky when he’d still been _Bucky_ once that look had been traded and he wasn’t as stupid as to think that arguing _now_ would get him anywhere else than to the closest fridge, embracing a cool packet of peas.

She did not err around on his floor as he would have suspected, but instead made a bee-line for the door at the far end of the hallway, out of sight from his own door – which was around the corner into the other direction – and he was about to go there, if Bucky wouldn’t have started to follow the intern with certain, if quiet, steps.

“Buck…”

Slightly wary of anything his friend was currently doing, he followed; partly out of obligation, partly out of curiosity. He was not prepared to watch his friend gently slide off the heels of the unconscious woman, who’d dropped to her mattress face first – and he nearly choked when Bucky went as far as to pull her into his arm and properly tuck her _under_ the blanket instead of wrapping her in the left over covers she had been resting on.

His friend did not hurry his motions either and Steve found himself wondering how often this had happened before – he’d thought he’d know it if it had, but then… he also hadn’t known about Clint teaching Darcy CQC as a favour to Bucky if the archer wouldn’t have made an offhanded comment about it (God _bless_ Clint’s loose tongue).

Ascertaining that she was well tucked in, Bucky turned from the bed and exited the room, herding Steve out of the door without _touching_ him so he could close it behind his back, before facing down the hard stare of the blond.

“How long has this been going on?” he ground out – not certain why he was so riled, aside from the fact that Bucky was currently not entirely stable and could have god knew what kinds of designs on the young woman who continued to simply let a trained, _legendary_ assassin close to her (okay, so he knew _exactly_ why).

FRIDAY buzzed in the speakers. “Sir, if I may.” His lips thinned; he wanted to hear it from Bucky – but his friend didn’t talk; not even to Sam (who, despite that, assured him that they were making progress). When he didn’t answer, the AI forged on: “Sergeant Barnes has made certain that Ms Lewis is in a proper position to recuperate only once before.” – if he should tell Tony that FRIDAY sounded like his mother? – “To my understanding, Sergeant Barnes, sees Ms Lewis in an unassisted position of value for the team and it might confuse him.”

Steve’s brow furrowed as he lifted his eyes to give his friend a look. Bucky nodded, once – his eyes trailing to the ground, as if he had something to be ashamed for.

“What kind of position?”

FRIDAY’s voice was soft, with a slight Irish lilt (the kind that had put Steve to sleep a thousand times… yeah, no telling Tony, he’d never hear the end of it): “I believe Sergeant Barnes sees Ms Lewis in a position resembling that of a handler, Sir.” She answered carefully – Bucky nodded again, eyes still trained on the ground. “His confusion might stem from the fact that case officers usually have a larger network of support at their disposal, which, in this case, Ms Lewis is lacking.”

He swallowed, taking in his friend, sorting the information. “So you’re the safety net?” he wondered.

He didn’t receive an answer, but he hadn’t expected one either.

**

_Mission: Formation and Protection of Object Darcy May Lewis_

_­ -- Accepted_

**

Whatever he’d regarded as dedication a mere ten hours ago took on a whole different colour in the light of the next morning – because there stood Darcy Lewis, commandeering the labs as if she hadn’t been awake for the last five days almost consecutively.

Steve recognized it now for what it truly was: blatant disregard for personal safety.

Which, in hindsight, made so much more sense considering her whatever-it-was with Bucky; it must have been her to initiate contact because Bucky avoided _everyone_ in the Tower as far as it was in his power to do so. Obviously, though, Ms Lewis had managed to corner him somehow, probably unloaded her day on his shoulders and went her way again. The shake-and-apple-thing might have come later, as a consequence of The Winter Soldier categorizing Ms Lewis as handler-sans-support.

And this was the cinch in the whole story: because Bucky was _not_ The Winter Soldier and Ms Lewis was an obstacle that triggered this secondary persona.

Therefor Ms Lewis had to go… or rather: vacate the premises around James Buchanan Barnes until he was healthy again and sound of mind; until he could recognize her as an intern and realize that there was nothing more to her than a pair of pretty eyes.

“Ms Lewis. A moment please.”

**

Darcy swallowed as she stood a little hesitantly, following The Captain out of her office. Jane, Bruce and Tony were puttering away on the recovered meteor-jewel (they’d given it a name but it was science-lingo and Darcy had yet to come up with a colloquial term corresponding to it) and wouldn’t notice her being gone for a few minutes, but she had FRIDAY take over supervision either way.

Steve Rogers had not, ever before, talked to her or even indicated that he was aware of her existence, which lead her to the preliminary conclusion that this was about Barnes – had to be really – and that made her inexplicably curious for about .5 seconds before he turned around and gave his best ‘America-is-disappointed-in-you’-stare and her reflexes kicked in.

Because she couldn’t count the times her mother had used that very same look on her and she’d developed a certain immunity to it, but he clearly had her at a disadvantage.

“Ms Lewis, let me make this short.” He started, crossing his arms (oh god, he was _exactly_ like her mother) – “It has come to my attention that you entertain regular encounters with James Barnes.”

He stopped there and she wondered if that had been a question when, apparently, he knew it to be a fact already. “Yes?” she answered, furrowing her brow. The blonde nodded, pursing his lips (seriously there _had_ to be a joke about him being Avengers-Mom or something… please for all that was holy to justice…) – Darcy trudged on. “I don’t even know why to be quite honest, he just was there one night when I was looking for coffee and handed me a protein-shake instead and… it’s become… normal, I guess.” (As far as anything concerning Barnes could be classified as ‘normal’.)

She didn’t know why she’d admitted this to him, obviously he was displeased about _something_ (and she could only guess, but then her gut instinct had always been pretty spot on), but her tactic had appeared to her as the lesser of two evils – either give it to him straight or _allow_ this to become an interrogation by not being forthcoming with information.

Captain America, looked at his own shoes as if he’d forgotten she were there, before he took a deep breath, raising his eyes again – Darcy had not been prepared to be on the receiving end of a downright glare.

“Ms Lewis I will take the liberty to tell you precisely what I think of your rendezvous.”, he started his voice harsh and cutting (she knew, by virtue of having been through this with her mother plenty of times, that she wasn’t going to get a word in),

“Your actions regarding James Barnes are rash and unsolicited. You do not know this man or what he has gone through. He has been forced to take on the mantle of assassin for the last seventy years and his triggers are unknown to us. But whereas _we_ are capable of holding our own, _you_ are a civilian putting herself unnecessarily into the line of fire – repeatedly I might add. There will come a day when the Science Department will not be able to reverse what has happened to you, there will come a day when we will not be able to pick up the phone and haul ass to assure the safety of a block-headed girl.”

He paused, eyes turning away, dismissing her before he even ended his speech. “As such I would suggest you cease your interactions with James Barnes until he is of clear mind. I cannot order you what to do, unfortunately, but you _should_ know that I do monitor your movements. In your position I’d think twice.”

He turned – left. She stayed where she was, silent and shocked.

**

Darcy could positively say that she was livid.

She’d been nothing but nice and considerate towards the people around her and had made it a point not to discriminate. Unlike what The Captain seemed to think, she couldn’t think of a moment in which she had pushed herself onto Barnes – also: she was convinced that if she had, he’d have let her know.

So they had started to _relate_ in this unconventional way of theirs and it was good – and in comes this _prick_ of a man, looking down his nose and ‘telling her precisely what he thought of those rendezvous’. Darcy gritted her teeth, seething as she hacked at the keyboard as she boiled quietly in her seat, this absolute _ass_.

Her fists balled and she stopped herself from hitting the table – barely.

Oh this fucking- “DICK!” she yelled, jumping from her seat at the table. Lord help her but she wanted to _hit_ something, repeatedly, until it gave in whimpering and bloody and her rage would be assuaged.

The labs were devoid of any scientist and so nobody bore witness to Darcy’s absolute yell of indignant anger.

Who the ever-loving fuck did he think he was to forbid her interaction with another human being within the tower? Was it her fault that he was so pants at being a friend that Barnes had to go looking elsewhere?

Not to talk about the condescension!

Lord but if ever she got her hands on his neck-

“Ugh!”

She kicked at the Gymnastics Ball under Bruce’s table – his chair substitute, much more likely to survive (Hulk had a thing for them – who’d’a thunk, right?) and was satisfied to see his table rattle when the rubber-shape hit its’ legs, bouncing around its’ confines. The air around her changed and Darcy looked up to find Barnes in the doorway, head cocked to the side as he took her in.

In his hands was a protein-shake and an apple and it was telling how quickly her mood changed from angry to embarrassed (and hopeful) as she took him in; still without a shirt. She took a deep breath.

“Sorry.” She stammered. “Bad day would probably not even begin to cover it.”

Barnes entered the lab, looking around cautiously as if to make certain that it was indeed devoid of any scientists as he made his way over to her, arms stretching to offer her the treats; Darcy went for the shake first, taking a sip.

“Are you even allowed down here without your star-spangled chaperone?” she muttered tartly, immediately going back to nursing her shake – he didn’t answer but his look darkened almost unperceptively. She knew him, though, and his lack of words had taught her to read his body-language like a professional; she could gauge him without a thought. He wasn’t happy, apparently, about what Rogers had gone out of his way to do.

She sighed, finishing her shake. “I know it’s not your fault – but he’s an ass of epic proportions, just so you know. Might be he’s all that America thinks good and stuff, but that was just…” she hesitated, accepting the apple he pushed at her. “I can’t even tell you how uncalled for that was in words known to the English language… or any language for that matter. Seriously your boy has one hell of a chip on his shoulder.”

Biting venomously into the apple, she relaxed against the very table she had just jostled with her kick to the Ball and found that talking about the subject – even though it was more a talking _around_ it more than talking _about_ it – had lessened the irrational anger about it (rationally justifiable anger remained). She could see where Rogers came from; and that was possibly the worst thing about the situation if she were honest – because nothing he’d said hadn’t already crossed her mind.

But Barnes was good – or as good as he could be – and having seen PTSD on her father and then later her brother, she was relatively certain that nothing Rogers did would bring back the man he knew as ‘Bucky’. (She’d tried with Dylan, she really had. She’d tried and she’d broken her own heart.)

A hand on her elbow brought her out of her pensive state and the slight pressure indicated that he wanted her to move – Darcy followed without hesitation, still nibbling on her apple.

The ride down in the elevator was silent, and when the Training Room came into her field of vision she was actually _elated_ to be guided there (she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it herself) but what actually had her break out in laughter was the target that Barnes had lined up at the end of the room.

She chortled, apple in one hand, as she took in the ‘Collage Of Bleargh’.

Rogers’ face was prevalent in it, the distinctive blue-red-white of his cowl making him easily visible amongst several Putin-masks and pictures of liquorice-strands, pink and frilly tutus, penguins, Heineken-bottles, the Dodgers-Logo and mosquitoes. She was still snickering when he bent to retrieve a case of throwing knifes and settling it in front of them before he sat down.

Darcy copied his motions, plopping gracelessly into an Indian Sit, quickly doing away with the rest of her apple.

“Is this going to be like Darts?” she wondered as she lobbed her apple at the nearest trash-chute, pumping her fist when she hit her designated target. Barnes did not answer, but she could tell he was thinking about it, Darcy smiled. “Let’s see if we get there.” She said then. “I’m not certain I’ll be able to hit anything from this position either way, so how about a little of warming up and then trying to hit the smallest targets ever – and probably not keep track because you would so definitely kick my very pert bottom.”

(She wasn’t certain but when he bent forth to make a grab at the knives it might have been to hide his face in his hair, she thought she’d spied a tiny smile.)

It was then and there that she decided that Captain Ass-merica could go suck on a Banjo. Seriously if the man wanted her to stop ‘interacting’ with Barnes then he would have to drag her very-dead corpse to Bombay and salt and burn her there (anything less and she’d make certain to return – there were worse things than an ectoplasmic body).

Barnes was, for some reason, comfortable with her, if the way he moved to sit closer to her was any indicator and she would be lying if she were to tell someone that she didn’t look forward to seeing him around the Tower. He was surprisingly easy to be around.

There certainly was the probability of him being triggered, she knew that, and she knew that vets suffering from an episode could be devastating – but her family had taught her how to deal. She’d learned what and what not to expect and do – she might not be able to defend herself, but she was certain as hell that she knew better than any of the freaking Avengers how to talk a PTSD-victim out of their flashback.

And really, the way he reached around her shoulder to correct the posture of her left arm sealed the deal.

(Rogers’ face was barely recognizable on the Collage when they were done.)

**

The Captain, as it turned out, made good on his word – and he made certain that she knew it too. There was nothing clandestine about the way he would pass the labs several times per day, sometimes making eye-contact with her, sometimes ignoring her very existence.

She knew she shouldn’t let it bother her – mostly because Barnes was his own person and even if he was told to _not_ do something, she trusted that if he didn’t want to listen, he would go his own way. And she liked to believe that even if The Captain forbade him from seeing her then Barnes still would, if he thought that it was right for him.

But that was not what she was apprehensive of.

Because even though she knew this, she also knew that if The Captain, in turn, felt it necessary to remove his friend from the premises then he would.

And Darcy did not like the feeling of helplessness gripping her heart when she thought about this possibility. Therefor the week after The Captain had had his little chat with her was spent in a mixture of apprehension and worry that settled in her throat as a thick blockade and ice in her belly.

It got worse when she didn’t see Barnes around the Tower and started to imagine… well, it was close to the emotional apocalypse what she was imagining. Her training sessions with Clint had to be cut short because he was a spy and had work to do and then…

Yeah. Short version? Emotional Apocalypse Monday Through Friday.

All in all, when she returned to her flat on Friday evening, she found herself, once again, eternally grateful for the opportunity to have something for her own – away from her work. She was a little down-trodden when there was no treat on her doorstep (she was even more chagrined to find that she’d come to expect such things; Lord but what did that make her…) and could not remember a time when she’d been any more listless opening the door to her abode.

The familiarity of it all soothed her a little, even though it was dark and lonely and she couldn’t even think on brewing herself some tea because… because the tea had been a gift from him and if Captain Ass-Hat had managed to relocate Barnes then she would have to stave off the utter depletion of her stock for as long as possible.

She didn’t flip on her lights until she was already halfway to her bedroom and even then it was only to plug in the dainty chains of fairy lights that she’d draped over her ceiling like stars (she’d come to have a weakness for them, all Jane’s fault).

Which is why, when she realized that something was _not_ as it was supposed to be, she could easily put it on the lack of lighting. But once the smooth shine of the little lamps dimly brightened her rooms, she realized that… her dining table was cluttered.

Given the fact that her dining table was a square that allowed just enough space for two people to leisurely eat on, she had taken great pains to make certain it would always be devoid of clutter. She knew of her propensity to spread her possessions on all available surfaces and she’d been adamant about not treating her dining table as such. She wanted to honour it and its’ profession as her dining table, small as it was.

She swallowed, eyes quickly sweeping through her rooms as she tried to scout any dark corners a perpetrator could have sequestered away in – she even checked her flat; twice – but whoever had put the folder on her table was long gone.

A little bit shaken, Darcy went to the kitchen grabbing for the tea – screw it, but she need something calming right now and tea (especially Barnes’ tea) did just that for her.

And while her water was steeping, Darcy closed in on the innocent-looking folder on her dining table: non-descript, beige, untitled. She made a grab for it, not expecting the weight and furrowing her brow at it. She had, for a second, entertained the idea that maybe Captain Icicle had left her a warning, maybe touched up with a few creepy stalker-shots of her cooking dinner (or whatever) but she was quite certain that no one would be able to scrounge up material this comprehensive in only a week – not even about her.

Turning back towards her kettle, she thumbed at the cover of the folder, going from idea to idea, each one more ludicrous than the first. Her kettle sang sweetly as the water boiled and, squeezing the folder under her arm, she quickly poured herself a healthy helping of tea into one of her larger cups and hopped onto her counter, crossing her legs.

The folder wandered back into her hands and she fiddled with it for a second before deciding that whoever had put it on her table would know that she would open it – so it had better be a damn fine good-night story what with the week she’d had.

Resolutely she opened the folder.

And promptly guffawed; “Oh God, Barnes!” she snorted – it was going to be a really awesome good-night-story.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys make me blush with your comments and I'm quickly starting to adore it. Here's chapter three :)
> 
> Also: I'm sorry Steve's an ass, I swear to god he means well?


	4. Vier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are like... my sunshine! Thank you so much, please bear with Steve, he tries, he really does, he's just a little emotionally constipated
> 
> **

Bucky, upon their return to the Tower, didn’t even wait before he returned to Ms Lewis’ side. As if to spite him, his friend concocted the healthiest smoothie that he possibly could with the ingredients available in the kitchen (Sam had called it ‘The Mother Of All Smoothies’) before snatching a protein-bar and stomping down to the labs like a petulant child.

The labs.  
Where there were scientists galore.  
Still working on and with obscure machinery.

Steve wondered, for the split of a second, if perhaps removing Bucky from the Tower for the last week had not been a bit hasty – before he argued that he’d given his very best to ascertain both the well-being of his friend as well as the stubborn intern. From here on out, it certainly wasn’t his fault if something happened.

Which did not mean that he was off his observation-duty.

Ms Lewis was a hazard to herself and those around her, Bucky included, if she wasn’t properly supervised and since Tony did not feel like letting her go or relocating her to another department (another facility – another _state_ ) it was up to Steve to make certain that she didn’t trigger Bucky and endanger anyone.

And so he followed.

Bucky shed his shirt with a noise akin to an angry hiss somewhere halfway down the Tower’s stairs and discarded the shirt into some corner with a glare that could have set it on fire – Steve hadn’t yet discovered _why_ he disliked wearing shirts (although he wore them longer, the softer and lighter the material was) but considering the target of his friend, the shirt was the lesser of his concerns as of now.

Sighing, he trudged several leagues after Bucky, making it to the Science Level just after the door had closed behind the shirt-less brunette. Buck didn’t enter the labs, but instead towered in the doorway to Ms Lewis glass-cube-office where she was typing away with mad abandon – until she spied Bucky over her monitor.

He’d never before seen a person literally _light up_ with joy – not at Bucky post-war and especially not post-Winter-Soldier – but there she was, itty-bitty Ms Lewis, face shining like the star on top of a Christmas Tree as she perceived Bucky just outside of her door. Her red lips parted into the world’s largest smile and her blue eyes glowed with happiness as she levered herself out of her chair and made towards him at a more sedate pace than he would have accredited her with.

She didn’t touch him, although he could see her hands twitching at her sides with the aborted movements towards his person and only once he offered her the smoothie did she thrust her own hand upwards, laughing loudly and exclaiming over the beverage with good humour before she propelled into the usual one-sided chitter he’d grown used to.

Bucky stood in the doorway and listened patiently, and if Steve didn’t misread his whole demeanour then there was _fondness_ (Good Lord, of all things!) on his face and the blonde almost groaned with how disastrous this all was going before his mind caught up and he remembered that Bucky would probably be able to hear him – so he swallowed the sound (and watched on with growing chagrin).

When she’d taken several sips, he handed her the protein-bar as well and she nodded, giving him another big smile and a last few words before he greeted her with a small nod (or had he agreed with her? Which one was it?) and they went their separate ways.

From his vantage-point he watched his friend passing him, a spring to his step and an ease to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before – Steve sighed, stepping out of his hiding hole only when Bucky had rounded the corner and was well on his way to the upper levels.

Ms Lewis was dangerous, he told himself as he neared her office, he couldn’t allow her to get too close to Bucky – it would end in tears all around; he couldn’t let that happen (even if he had to concede that it probably hadn’t been her fault to begin with).

He didn’t knock as he stepped into the glass-cube sandwiched between three labs, didn’t turn when he closed the glass door and straightened his back until he was at his maximum height, crossing his arms in front of his chest for dramatic purposes, slipping into his persona.

Ms Lewis looked faintly amused. “Something I can help you with, Sir?”

She wasn’t being caustic, not really – and that threw Steve. Because he knew that Ms Lewis’ mother-tongue was the very deepest, darkest, edgiest sarcasm known to mankind. But this tone… this was something else (something he’d heard on someone else’s tongue first).

“Ms Lewis.” He barely acknowledged her, upping his game – the last time around he’d had her pretty cowed (he was aiming for that, needed her to be sufficiently scared of him to disband all notion of interacting with Bucky again while his friend was still recovering…). “Have you not given any thought to my proposal?” he ground.

Her eyes danced as she lifted her head to stare right back at him, humoured, _playful_ (oh God, he knew where he’d seen that look before – oh god… oh god…).

“I actually have, Sir.” She answered smoothly, her voice betraying no enjoyment of the situation – just simple Q-A-fact-stating. “But seeing as it’s a stupid-ass proposal, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

She turned back to typing, her eyes flickering from left to right as her fingers danced quicker than he’d ever seen any of the secretaries from his time do on a Typewriter. His lips thinned as he stepped closer, his arms loosening in order to free his hands to rest them on her table-top, towering over her.

“I must demand you reconsider.”

The young woman in question turned her head towards him and, instead of creating distance between him and her, closed in ever so slightly – and grinned that very grin that had the hair on his back raising with a warning tingle.

“And I must ask you to leave, Sir. You do not have an appointment and I fear you are taking up precious minutes of my working time. I am certain that, if you would wish, I could pencil you in somewhere – would that be to your liking?”

He watched as she bent to the far end of her table and clawed at a small calendar that she promptly drew to her, pen uncapped and at the ready, she gave him an expectant look.

“Do not be foolish, Ms Lewis.” He growled, but even he could see that her suave reaction was not merely born of a façade – there was something deeper and before he knew what it was any plan of attack would be ill executed, strategical retreat was in order; he straightened up, his hands leaving her desk. “You would be well advised to stop playing with fire.”

But as he walked out, she was wearing that smile again (and if he were honest it scared the shit out of him, because that smile… that was Natasha’s smile – Natasha’s _Black Widow_ smile).

**

She had told him about Tony’s little bender into the realms of science and technology, but she had not expected him to come visit her – not really.

While, last week, all she’d wished for had been to catch even only the tiniest glimpse of his _hair_ around this or that corner, having seen him this afternoon had quenched her heretofore bottomless desire to lay eyes on him. And, knowing Captain Ass-butt, Barnes had probably been temporarily relocated to try and flush _her_ out of his system which gave to consideration that his week had very likely been at least as stressful, if not more so, than hers. So he deserved his sleep.

Hell, he deserved the best shut-eye he’d ever had and she was not going to be standing between the man and his pillow.

So when two in the morning rolled around and she was still up, still working on putting a dent into the never-shrinking pile of Science-Scribbles – published in three different languages! – she had not expected his quiet foot-halls on the linoleum floor.

Darcy could tell that the only reason that he did make sound was for her benefit and as she turned she could tell by his abrupt halt that the surprise on her face was visible. “Uh.” She stuttered, finding him but three steps from her – she was still seated and had to look up, and when she did her glasses slipped so she tiredly pushed them up her nose, putting him into focus. “I didn’t expect you.” She admitted when she, too, stood – closing the distance between them.

He cocked his head, offering her the water; she took a sip. “Well… my week was… difficult and I could only imagine that yours had to be doubly so and I assumed that you’d be glued to your bed, snoring and… dreaming of Centaurettes prancing around to Beethoven.” (1940’s _Fantasia_ was a thing, alright?)

The last bit she’d added entirely for _his_ benefit because something in his demeanour changed so drastically that she didn’t know whether to read it as _resignation_ or _guilt_ or _anger_ or _sadness_ and it confused the ever living fuck out of her. She bit her lip, playing with the bottle in her hand.

“Thank you.” She finally said, looking up again. “I know you got Captain Wedgie-Pants breathing down your neck and you’re still going out of your way to make certain I don’t die or something so…” _Yeah_ … “Thank you.”

He didn’t smile – not exactly. But as he’d passed her the protein-bar, he raised his flesh hand and gently carded his fingers through her hair, alternating this motion with patting her head in soothing strokes. She’d never felt quite as forgiven, accepted and cared for as she had in this moment.

(Oh God she was going to fall for a man who suffered from PTSD, DID and his selective mutism wouldn’t even let him talk about it.) She closed her eyes and let his caresses wash over her.

**

Personally she liked to think that her curiosity had been forced onto her, trained until she wore it like her skin, whereas Clint was just… born that way. There was no secret he didn’t want to get in on (and more often than not he got his wish) – but then there also was no one else with a tongue as loose as his was (even though she knew that the secrets that _counted_ would go to the grave with him).

These last few weeks, whenever they’d had the time to chat about their respective lives, he’d been going on and on about his ‘little parakeet’. At first this mysterious person had only registered as a trainee, that he had the joy of teaching CQC and a bit of marksmanship since she seemed to get into the crossfire at odd times. A bit of digging on her side revealed, however, that the ‘little parakeet’ seemed to have people around her that were concerned enough that they would corner Clint (a feat in itself) and badger him into training someone he hadn’t until then, known.

It was an almost unheard of thing and had gotten her thirst for more whetted.

Several well-placed questions later and she’d realized that Clint’s ‘parakeet’ was no one else than the meek intern of one Dr Jane Foster – Darcy Lewis.

Natasha didn’t know a lot about Darcy May Lewis that went beyond her file: 25, orphaned but adopted at the age of eight, rough few years before she dove head-first into academia and emerged with a 4.7 GPA before shipping off to Culver University where she barely escaped the Green Madness and found her way to Dr Jane Foster as the only applicant for an internship. The rest was history. But the more Clint had talked, the more the Russian realized that there was an entirely different side to the young woman who, apparently, took to CQC like a duck to water and couldn’t help but stare in awe at glinting weapons (and _always wanted to touch)_ and who would get creative with the name-calling if she was riled.

Naturally, once she put her ear to the ground she realized that Clint’s fondness was not the end of it. As it turned out Darcy Lewis was Thor’s one and only ‘Lightning Sister’ and had earned herself the title by tasing the god in a panic moment which promptly felled the blonde lug. And then she realized that Tony had a soft spot for the young woman because she could be a harpy when it came to feeding him – _them_ , apparently, because Bruce, too, had been taken under her wing.

So, yeah, Natasha staunchly held to the conviction that her curiosity had been ingrained in her – but what mattered was that it was _there_ – and Darcy Lewis proved to be much more interesting than previously anticipated. If there would have been any part of her that still listened to _Natalia_ outside of her missions, she’d have said her intel was lacking. And the only way to remedy this was by reconnaissance. And Clint was the best to have with on reconnaissance missions (he _always_ brought Skittles and Gatorade – bless him).

Also he knew how to manoeuvre the vents without being detected.

And so the two of them had, on a dreary Wednesday with nothing else to do, made to follow Darcy May Lewis around, watching Clint’s ‘little parakeet’ in live action from the moment she’d stepped into the Avengers’ Tower.

Barely five hours into the workday, Natasha had to concede that the young woman was an indomitable force to be reckoned with. Tony’s whinging, that would usually have one of the Avengers caving to one of his eclectic whims, fell on deaf ears with the young woman and even DUM-E took her side over that of his creator. Bruce’s tea-pot never really emptied given the steady supply stream of his favourite Green Tea (brewed to perfection). And Dr Foster’s calculations always found their way back to her table in a legible script – all that while digitalising illegible science lingo written on paper, cups, tickets and even toilet paper (бо́же мой, Stark), organising the rest of the science gophers, making certain everyone was fed and as close to a state of happiness as possible.

Darcy Lewis was the goddess of the labs.  
There was nothing meek about this woman.

Natasha thought that perhaps she understood now why the intern had sacrificed herself over the safety of a whole department as they continued to shadow her on her rounds (they were hers and Darcy probably wouldn’t have minded death so long as she died knowing them to be secure).

Even as night fell, the woman showed no signs of dialling it down. Jane Foster was still busy at her work station, tinkering away on a machine with Tony at her side trading friendly barbs and banter in a familiar way while Darcy herself was still going good from where she was seated in front of her computer.

Soon the clock passed twelve, and then one.

Jane fell asleep and Darcy relocated her to the nearest couch, arguing in hushed whispers with Tony who proposed sending for Thor and having Foster sleep ‘on a real bed’ that the moment the astrophysicist would wake, she would want to continue working – and she’d never forgive the intern if she would have to waste time going to the labs when there was a perfectly good couch down here (Tony gave a silly grin at the rendition of Jane Foster’s voice; Clint had to admit that it was well done).

Yet, still, Darcy didn’t stop and as the clock edged closer to two in the morning, Natasha started to get a little worried. Tony had absconded into his World of Science and did not register jack, but the young woman was showing the first signs of fatigue, if her near-to-constant blinking and trying to stretch out her back was any indicator. Every so often her eyes would glue themselves to Tony’s back and she would observe and – at this – Natasha realized that Darcy Lewis was not only here to _feed and water_ the scientists, but she was their supervisor.

She was there to make certain that there would be no unnecessary explosions due to exhaustion or short-circuiting synapses. Darcy Lewis kept the labs alive and running, despite the fact that her official contract mentioned nothing but interning for Dr Foster herself. And yet, here she was, this young woman, going above and beyond without ever asking for anything in return – just because.

(This was a night of revelations and Natasha was not certain if she felt comfortable with the things she’d, obviously, missed when it came to Ms Darcy May Lewis – _Natalia_ sneered at her ignorance from the pits of her consciousness.)

Two o’clock came and went, Tony still tinkering away on Dr Foster’s machines, Darcy still working on reducing her pile of papers. Clint had nodded off by now, the sugar-rush taking him gently and soothing him into a heavy sleep as it always would – his head rested on her lap and her fingers carded through his hair almost absentmindedly and she was about to set a timer for ten minutes and doze a little herself, when the door to Darcy’s office opened.

(She tapped Clint awake.)

Darcy smiled unrestrained at the new-comer, sauntering to where her visitor stood in the doorway, eyes sliding apprehensively from her to the man tinkering away on the machine behind her and – as if sensing his unease – she moved out of his line of sight, allowing him to take it all in while talking to him.

From her side Clint uttered a curse that had wiggled itself stuck in her own throat and she stared as Darcy started to chat with the man who’d just entered her cube-office. And she was not holding back a single thing either – Natasha realized. The intern was laying her whole day right out there, in front of a man who could kill her in her sleep and never regret it if he was on _that_ side of his mind.

What was even more curious, and what made her pause and stop Clint from descending out of the vents, was the fact that _he_ seemed to be genuinely interested in what she said – his posture relaxed, fully facing her and looking down at her almost unblinkingly while she just… babbled.

At one point, he’d handed her a gallon of water that she’d guzzled down like a woman parched before going for the protein-bar that he’d handed her afterwards. It was while she was nibbling at the latter, that he put a careful hand to her elbow (and making certain that she saw his movement) and gently steered her away from the labs. Darcy went willingly and without fear.

Needless to say that Clint and her followed.

Barnes was still a large Unknown amongst the Avengers, despite the fact that Sam told them – time and time again – that he was in pretty good shape considering what he’d gone through and, yeah, Natasha _knew_ that. But that didn’t mean she was about to let the two go off alone.

(Next to her Clint called Darcy every name under the sun that wasn’t ‘little parakeet’.)

Darcy was the sole entertainer as the two of them ambled towards the training room, forgoing the elevator (it still made him twitchy) and when the destination became clear, Clint, for some reason, slowed down for the split of a second as if waiting for a thought to catch up, before he sped up again, sidling up to her – they made it into the room just before privacy settings were put in place.

For a moment Natasha did not know what to think of that – but her panic bells were ringing and _Natalia_ was stirring behind her bars.

“Dude!” Darcy exclaimed, hopping towards a target at the back of the room that was littered with… balloons “This is even better than the Collage of Bleargh!” Natasha furrowed her brow as the intern inspected the target before turning her head back to the man still standing at the other end of the training room – watching her. “Okay, you got me. What is this?”

Not responding, Barnes lifted his hand instead, palm upwards – an invitation. Darcy danced right back into his orbit and he had them seated. The ease with which the young woman held her conversation and acted around the man Natasha only knew as a hardened soldier struck something odd with her – she found that it assuaged her. She’d feared for _something_ … and it wasn’t happening; by sheer force of will of one Darcy Lewis.

“Come on, Barnes, you got me on tenterhooks here. What’s got you all secretive?” the young woman goaded and Natasha looked again to find that he was holding her own hands to cover her eyes before he shifted, reaching for something. “It’s not my birthday so it’s not gonna be cake, although, damn cake would be awesome right about now. I’ll take cookies too – actually.” She paused. “Oh my god, please don’t tell me we’re going to try this _blind_ because I know you have some head-issues but even you can tell I’m not that far along in the schedule.”

Clint choked up next to her, trying to abort a chortle that clawed at his throat at this unfiltered comment – she herself had been surprised at the directness of the young woman but, looking to Barnes, all she could see was a slight tug at his lips.

Natasha knew, by now, that whoever had been in charge of composing Darcy Lewis’ file had either grossly underestimated her or was a really good friend of hers who didn’t want everybody to know about her capabilities (it was likely the first and she wasn’t certain if she should change that) – because a small quirk in the marble mask that was James Barnes’ face was tantamount to a full blown belly laugh; and Darcy had put it there. She had, somehow, managed to worm herself right into the armour of The Winter Soldier and create a chink there that he wasn’t even keen on ironing out. (She should stop feeling so surprised, probably.)

Barnes was still keeping Darcy’s hand in front of her even though it limited his range of motion as he made to roll out a small fleck of leather in front of her crossed feet and Natasha’s head tilted in silent contemplation. Clint, next to her, hummed appreciatively.

Moving his hand – and hers – away from her eyes, Barnes crouched behind said fleck of leather he had just set out, presenting it to Darcy and, with a carefully blank face (that both Clint and Natasha looked through without effort) waited for her reaction. Darcy’s eyes were all for the leather in front of her.

“Oh my god.” She breathed, hands reaching out hesitantly, hovering above the treasures before she lifted her eyes. “Can I?”

He nodded once and Darcy’s hand descended onto cool metal blades that were tucked into delicate loops of leather, caressing with a lover’s touch that Natasha approved of. “These are… Jesus, Barnes, this is a treasure.” She whispered breathy.

Tension bled out of shoulders and the man shifted onto his behind from where he’d been balancing on the balls of his feet – his position now relaxed. His metal hand lifted, gesturing towards Darcy.

For a moment the woman stilled, surprised, confused and Natasha watched with baited breath as the tension climbed right back into Barnes’ shoulders. The black-haired woman blinked. “You’re kidding.” She stated wonderment evident in her voice as she inspected one such a treasure – she looked back up. “Seriously?”

Another nod (a tug at his lips he had to hide with his hair).

“Oh my god.” The younger woman said again. “Barnes, you beautiful son of a bitch, I probably owe you my first born now or something.”

(The soldier was downright clamping down on his lips by now, making an effort not to let his mask crack – Clint was not so clandestine and had to move away in order not to be overheard as he succumbed to his giggles.)

Natasha had to admit that foul language was allowed in this instance – the knives were the work of an artist, beautifully balanced and artfully crafted. She didn’t doubt that they had been made special for the very woman caressing them while Barnes watched on.

**

She looked out for the intern the next day and even went as far as to descend into The Common Rooms – which she had, until now, avoided (for reasons). But eight in the morning did see her, for the first time in years, entering the Common’s Kitchen and finding there Ms Lewis so occupied with preparing breakfast foods that she didn’t even turn her head to see who had joined her.

Natasha had never seen scrambled eggs done with sugar, but judged by the steady hands and the innocent focus of the woman handling the pan, she ventured a guess that this wasn’t the first time she concocted this very same food. Three plates had already been set aside, two filled with fruits and vegetables and one with a pile of pancakes.

Carefully she closed in, eyes on one of the fruit-and-vegetable-plates – but before she could even touch a carrot, Lewis’ spatula already hovered over her outstretched hand (she hadn’t even looked away from the frying pan she was commandeering). “Proceed only if you can positively say that Barnes coming after you for having eaten his strawberries does not disconcert you – and only then.”

The spy didn’t even try to hide her smirk and moved her fingers away from the plate (Lewis had still not looked up). She was about to make something for herself, but the intern pushed another plate at her – eyes still on her concoction. “Those are the left-overs, if you want them. I generally make too much of everything.”

She had indeed, from the looks of it, and the plate pushed into Natasha’s direction was filled with fruits and pancakes and when the Maple Syrup, too, entered her line of vision she figured why hold back. Darcy was still concentrating on the Scrambled Eggs with Sugar and as she ate, Natasha observed the careful handling of the treat – not once did the sugar ‘misbehave’ and darken past anything but a warm, earthy brown that promised the heavenly stickiness of caramel.

Once the food had been done, Darcy reached for a Bialetti Coffee Can, poured a heavy helping and, without turning around to greet her (probably already forgetting about her) she stacked the plates, grabbed the mug and sashayed down the hallway towards the elevator which FRIDAY opened without a prompt – and gone was the young intern, off to rule over the science labs.

Lost in thought, Natasha chewed on her cakes of the pan variety.

**

She didn’t know _what_ it was, but she was certain that it did not come from Barnes.

Barnes did not leave notes with his gifts, and she could easily discern the small, white paper sitting innocently on top of the black strip that was placed centre stage on her desk.

Darcy had been gone for about half an hour in which she’d brewed up three cans of coffee to be distributed on designated ‘treat-tables’ in the science labs – the gophers, after all, too lived off coffee (she wondered if having coffee running through your veins was a prerequisite for being an acolyte of the hard sciences) and considering they worked in her dominion this meant she had to make certain that there would always be enough of it for them to pour down their greedy throats.

Half an hour was long enough for an agent to enter the labs, plant a bomb and leave again – and given the drive of her minions once they did work, she was well aware that not one scientist would have noticed. But then fiendish agents did not leave notes.

She fiddled with the paper, taking a look at the black cloth neatly folded on her desk – she couldn’t tell what it was without picking it up and she didn’t feel comfortable with that thought yet. Instead, she unfurled the small slip of paper.

 

_\-- Kn_ _ife-holsters. Attach to your thigh or your lower arm. So your Taser doesn’t have to be your only line of defence._

 

Darcy didn’t know the writing and there was no name, but she could guess that it was a woman’s penmanship and… going by those variables the only woman she trusted to know of her recent acquisition of blades was Natasha Romanov. Because trying to have a secret while working in a Tower filled with spy-ssassins, super humans and geniuses… pretty close to impossible for your average Darcy.

On the other hand: this was a gift from The Black Widow (she admitted to swooning a little) and not putting it to use might bear ramifications that she was not keen on exploring – add to that, she thought giddily, this slip of paper was as close as it could get to officially giving her permission to carry the blades she’d been gifted with (and now Darcy wanted to smooch the woman to Kingdom Come).

Therefore, once she’d grabbed the holsters and given them a thorough once over her next course of action was a no-brainer, really.

The holsters felt comfortable against her skin, the silicone strips on the backside of the smooth leather making certain that they would stay safely to where she’d strapped them on her thigh beneath her pencil-skirt and her lower arm beneath her long-sleeved shirt. It took a little getting used to, admittedly; moving with weaponry while trying to act as if you weren’t armed was… new and quite exciting if she were being honest (even more so when she considered the fact that she actually knew how to handle the weapons strapped to her body).

She considered various reasons for being on the Black Widow’s Nice-List throughout her day, but couldn’t come up with a valid explanation – and since she didn’t once cross paths with the woman in question, Darcy resigned herself to the fact that she would simply have to accept this as it was. And, even though she wanted to, thanking her ‘anonymous’ spender probably wouldn’t go over too well either, considering the fact that there hadn’t been a name on the note.

The thoughts bled into one another until work took over again and she pushed her musings aside, setting her mind back on track and keeping the labs and their inhabitants safe and happy.

Barnes came around at eleven in the evening – much earlier than usual but with him she’d come to expect the unexpected and his presence was sorely appreciated what with Bruce on another one of his science-benders.

He was quiet, as he always was, standing opposite of her in the hallway (shirtless, again) and watching her as she drank from her gallon and nibbled from her protein-bar. It took her some time to notice, but his eyes rested a little too intently on her body, and when she did, her face lit up.

“Yeah.” She said softly, setting her food and drink to the side, going for the buttons on her sleeve. “I got a gift today, from a Daddy Longlegs.” She uncovered the holster on her lower arm and gave him a brilliant smile. “Did I do it right?”

His head hunched a little as he lifted her arm closer towards his eyes, inspecting her handiwork with the holster and running a finger to trace its’ lines on her skin (yeah, his fingers felt really nice, metal _and_ flesh) before he nodded, and raised an expectant gaze at her. Darcy’s lips pursed and she smirked.

“Not showing you the second one, Barnes. Not unless you wine and dine me proper like a gentleman is supposed to.”

The tiny smile on his lips caught her off guard (even more so the little tap of his metal hand on her thigh, right where her holster sat) but it was gone before she could burn it into her mind and replaced with soothing hands on her head.

(She would praise the very ground Natasha Romanov walked on until the end of her days.)

**

Clint had never really had a problem with Barnes.

He’d _been_ _there_. He knew what it was like to have your brain shut off, your skin cut open and your personality taken just for the benefit of some asshole who considered himself above the rest of the world.

If he hadn’t had the support he then found out he had, he was not certain if he’d ever been able to recuperate from the blow that Loki had dealt him.

The endlessness of the nightmares, the constant nagging at his mind, the silent fear that crept up to him without warning, the anxiety attacks and the paranoia… It had been nearly a year by now, but he could still feel it as if he were in that period of his life right that moment.

So no; he had no quarrel with Barnes. No matter what the man might have done to him while still in his Winter Soldier persona.

Not only was the man rather chill for what had happened to him, but he was also a fellow marksman and they had, originally, bonded over shooting targets until nothing but bullet-holes remained and _then_ they’d started egging each other on (yeah, the bullet holes had become their new targets…).

He’d had _fun_ while training for the first time in a long while – and Barnes was a challenging opponent, so when he’d come to wordlessly goad Clint into training an intern for CQC, it had only taken a minimum of haggling (Clint was now in the possession of one of Rogers’ boxers, complete with 52 stars on them – he was waiting for the right moment to put it out there and watch the Tower go up in flames).

And Darcy Lewis wasn’t half as bad. She’d never been trained, obviously, but she possessed an inherent stubbornness that would have her repeat a motion over and over again, no matter how often she got it wrong (no matter how often she had to suffer a blow for it) until she _got it right_ – and that was a nice trait to have in an impromptu student.

Barnes would, sometimes, hand him candid pictures of Rogers or any other Avengers as something akin to payment for his troubles with Darcy and while Clint didn’t _need_ the recompense he was not above hoarding black-mail-worthy-material on his team-members.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought the balloons would do this?  
> 
> 
> And yeah: the folder Darcy received just one chapter ago? So much blackmail on the shit Steve used to pull/ does pull - because Winter Soldier cannot arm her with weapons, or train her to best Steve in a fight within two weeks, but he can give her intel - and let's be honest: that's the most important part about warfare :b


	5. Fünf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You GUYS!!!! 
> 
> This is the last chapter of this installment and it's taken me a little bit longer than the other four, but I hope that you'll like it nonetheless :D
> 
> **

Natasha knew that he didn’t remember her or _Natalia_ – despite the fact that he’d been crucial to her breaking her conditioning; even though his own had never truly gotten away from him and she didn’t doubt that when he’d given himself up in order to create a diversion and hence a chance for her to flee the consequences had been monstrous. She also didn’t doubt that he’d been wiped so thoroughly he probably hadn’t been able to remember the word for his eye-colour.

So when Barnes chose to sit in the same room with her while she cleaned her weapons in order to bring his Dragunov and start cleaning it too, she was well aware that it was not because Sam had had a breakthrough.

But Barnes knew the people around him – probably better than they knew each other – and he was well aware that Lewis’ latest addition to her arsenal had been by her hand. (She was surprised to find that this, of all things, built something like trust in him).

**

On a good day Barnes would accompany them to the training rooms – sometimes he would join into the team-training-sessions that The Cap put them through, but most of the time he would sit propped up against a wall and watch.

At first this had made him nervous.

Because being watched – and no doubt _analysed_ – by a former HYDRA assassin wasn’t exactly an experience he wished on people (much less himself). But Barnes just sat, and observed, and didn’t do a thing and it became so normal that he forgot about the man on the side-lines.

Until he got stuck on a manoeuvre.

Steve’s tactical mind was something beautiful to behold, no doubt, but the scenarios he came up with were increasingly abstract and hair-brained – in short: they frustrated the ever-living daylights out of him. Especially when he couldn’t get behind them and the training would be a failure due to his ‘lack of capability’.

This had been the third time in a row now with as many approaches to the problem that he failed to take the hurdle and it was grating on him (good at admitting his own failures he was _not_ ).

About to hide away in his lab and go on a serious science-bender that he knew would be protected – to some extent (mostly dependant on the duration of it) – by the intern Darcy he was surprised to find a small note stuck to his display that, upon inspection, revealed an approach at overcoming the obstacle.

When he ran the statistics on the proposal, the outcome was far in the 80% and the moment he implemented the manoeuvre, Steve himself hailed nothing but praise on him.

But Tony knew that the idea had come from the wall-flower – and he felt less bad when letting Barnes watch.

(He repaid the deed when he allowed Sergeant Elsa a small portion of his working station the night Lewis had been attacked – and he couldn’t help but wonder at the deftness of those hands and that mind…)

**

She could tell that it was a bad day even before he’d reached her.

His shoulders were hunched over, his eyes sifting as he took in his environment within the period of two steps precisely before they settled on her – steely, instable. Barnes’ lower face-half was covered in her scarf and she recognized this sign as a literal red flag.

Bad days happened to everyone – but Barnes having bad days meant a troubled prisoner of war being perilously close to the precipice, just shy of tumbling into madness.

The first time it had happened, he’d hunkered down in front of her cube-like-office, more or less content to observe everyone coming and going until she’d grabbed her laptop and plonked down next to him with the stack of notes. Once she realized that he needed to be able to observe the going-on-s around him while knowing his back to be secure she had promptly rearranged her small working place in order to allow him the perfect vantage point. She was rewarded for her efforts the next time it happened, as he even made his way into her small glass-cube – glaring the people passing.

So when something heavy and warm settled next to her right knee, Darcy’s eyes only swerved from the keyboard for the split of a second, acknowledging his presence before returning to deciphering Bruce’s spidery scrawl from a McDonald’s-napkin (he was just as bad as Jane or Tony when it came to preserving his brainwaves; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise).

Barnes didn’t talk, and she had come to accept this about him, but when he had a bad day, she had learned very quickly, he could not abide being talked _to_ (or at) and to her chagrin would keep his body so still and silent that she couldn’t even read him anymore. It had been frustrating the first two times around, before she’d given up on trying to figure it out and had started accommodate to this as well (though, just to be straight here, it was one of the most difficult things she’d done for the sake of others).

At the very least, she told herself repeatedly on those days, she should feel honoured that he would trust her with himself on those days.

And she was, don’t get her wrong. For Barnes to even _consider_ the proximity of another human being during those days when he wasn’t certain of anything, lest of all himself, meant a great deal; that he would choose to ride out whatever had him at the balls by her side, trusting her on some level that others hadn’t quite achieved yet (not even Rogers, and if that wasn’t an incentive then Darcy didn’t know what was), was the highest praise that she could possibly ever receive.

He sat next to her, unmoving, uncommunicative and starry-eyed and Darcy allowed her leg to soften against his shoulder, knowing that he could tell the difference and hoping that it would tell him that she could relax with him near her, even when his day sucked.

Also, never let it be said that Barnes didn’t know to value her silence and acceptance of the fact that sometimes he used her as a Time-Out-Corner. For at the end of such days or the next day, depending, Darcy would find little trinkets on her dining table – another layer to their odd relations that they didn’t address. She didn’t need them and had contemplated returning her first (thank-you?) gift, but had then decided against it.

True she hadn’t counted on it, but Barnes had – obviously – no concrete idea of how to interact with other humans when it wasn’t for the sake of achieving a (mission-) goal and she was very likely the only person he regularly sought out on his own behalf. He didn’t know how to thank her for being there and since she couldn’t offer a valid alternative that wouldn’t possibly make him uncomfortable, she made certain to accept the gifts.

Amongst others, the following gadgets had thusly found their way into her possession:

  * Additional ammunition for her Bullet Taser
  * A holster for said ammunition that she could loop through her belt
  * A small crossbow
  * Target sheets for said crossbow and
  * Booby traps to reinforce her apartment



Natasha had carefully hypothesised that sooner or later she would have received the ‘gifts’ under any other circumstances as well and that this way he could have a ‘reason’ for giving them to her.

**

From his work at the VA Sam was well aware that what Steve wished for was unattainable – no matter how much he wanted to make it come true.

But he’d seen people, friends, suffer from the aftermaths of having been held prisoner during times of war and he didn’t doubt that even they were straight A-Students in comparison to James Buchanan Barnes – or Bucky as Steve continued to call him – when it came to recovery and dealing (though, to be fair, none of them had 70 years of imprisonment to deal with).

Sam addressed him as ‘Sergeant’ because it was the closest thing to ‘Soldier’ that he felt comfortable calling the man he had regular sessions with. Admittedly, most of the time his counterpart _stared_ but Sam liked to believe that he’d built something of a rapport between the two of them – because lately, the Sergeant had started to become looser in his posture, easier to read (more accessible).

He still didn’t talk and Sam was fine with that, really, and he considered this development a progress but he was still not sold on the Sergeant ever returning to the outgoing persona that Steve had described to be Bucky.

If ever it happened Sam would probably have nothing to do with it and would publicly consider it a miracle.

It took a bit of chance and another visit from Phobetor with a dreamscape from hell to keep him up all night for him to happen upon a revelation the likes of which he would consider damn close to a miracle.

Barely had he entered the kitchen that the soft chatter of a young woman reached his ears, and he blearily squinted, trying to focus on the fuzzy silhouettes mere feet from him.

The first thing he could properly make out was the very naked back of The Sergeant, blocking the view of what Sam suspected to be the talker – her arms were flailing around her as she recounted a story (Tony – labs – Bruce – thing-a-ma-bob – blew up – should’ve seen his face) and Sam perceived a bottle of water in one of them, whereas the other one held on to an unpacked protein-bar.

And The Sergeant was _listening_.

Not even, as it appeared, out of obligation, because sometime in the middle of the rant he relaxed his hip against the kitchen counter and shifted, allowing Sam not only a glimpse at the lively, young woman, but also allowing him to see a side of the man that was not tightly-strung. He reached for an apple when the alu-paper of her protein-bar crinkled with its’ emptiness and traded the two of them, while she was still talking and Sam wondered if she was aware of _who he was_ , before reminding himself that every employee in the Tower had received a notice about The Sergeant’s presence and proclivity for flashbacks.

(There may or may not have been additional meetings to discuss proper action in case of him going crazy.)

The young woman had to know who The Sergeant was, and yet, as she finished her story, she beamed with bright eyes at the super-soldier, thanked him for the water and the apple and left again.

Sam might have hid before The Sergeant had been able to turn around and find him listening in on the conversation. He did, however, decide that whoever this saint was talking to The Sergeant like a _normal human being_ (looking at you Steve – just looking, not saying anything) he had to become her very best friend.

(Turned out Darcy Lewis was not only easy to get to know, but also rather easy to be around. Turned out, too, that she was the key to The Sergeant.)

**

Darcy ignored the pain flaring up her wrist as it twisted unnaturally – not enough to break, just enough to hurt (maximum injury was a sprain) – and instead of tugging away from her aggressor, closed in; the movement catching him off-guard.

She’d known that one day they would come around to take a remote interest in her – even if it was only because she worked for Jane and might therefor have access to information they could want and even if she’d also hoped (apparently against hope) that they wouldn’t, and instead discard her as just a pair of pretty boobs.

Huffing, she brought up her knee and when he let go, thwacked him into the chest with her foot, grimacing with the satisfaction it brought to her when her opponent’s sternum crunched under her foot (was she weird to get into this?) and ducking before the fist of the guy next to her could connect (she was going to get Clint a fruit-basket) – her arm shout out without a thought and she pulled the trigger.

With three down and five to go, Darcy discarded her previous tactic of letting them come to her – if she waited too long they would get over their initial shock that an apparent civilian knew how to defend herself sufficiently to take out their Muscle.

Sliding past her nearest opponent, she brought her foot to the inside of his knee, arm shooting out to hit the one running at her with a Taser bullet but before he could even sack to the ground a hot-and-cold-sensation at her neck startled her out of her focus.

“Ah.” A voice cooed at her ear – and she couldn’t tell where it had come from! – “Yes. Now we can all calm down.”

Nothingness took her.

**

“We don’t have the time!” the voice hissed from above her and Darcy was horrified to realize that she’d been tied to a table, the leather straps digging uncomfortably into several places on her body. Trying to swallow, she realized that she’d been drooling like _crazy_ apparently, and the side of her cheek was now wet with spit. (Ew)

“Then stall them!” another voice yelled, closer to her head than the other one which she would have located somewhere near her right foot. “All it needs is one injection – one! And then-“

The door blew off its’ hinges. Darcy couldn’t turn her head and suffered a solitary hinge to her forehead before darkness descended again.

**

Stark’s whistle through the com made him flinch a little but otherwise The Captain didn’t show any sort of reaction.

“Out of eight?” his hollow voice resounded.

“Affirmative.” –damn Hawkeye this was not the moment for _pride_. “Five AIM operatives are currently being shipped off to The Big House. Looks like the Bullet Taser did a wonderful job."

And the odd knife, The Captain thought disapprovingly; he’d seen the mayhem – and he knew that craftwork. Bucky had reverted into The Winter Soldier even before the rest of the team had finished combing the scene of the initial kidnapping and had abandoned his side for the intern – _again_. While, on the upside, he needed do nothing but follow the driven man to the location that Ms Lewis doubtlessly would be at (Bucky had always been excellent at tracking, it was likely The Winter Soldier had honed this skill to perfection and beyond), he couldn’t help but curse the woman.

Because, god fucking damn it, this was precisely why he’d wanted her apart from them – she was not equipped for playing with the fire and now she got burned.

“Sergeant engaging.” Sam noted from where he soared the heights and The Captain nodded to himself, sped up and rounded the corner just to see The Winter Soldier lock the last of three guards in a sleeper-hold and then twist the neck when the man was unconscious (silence had been ingrained into The Winter Soldier – he was a ghost).

The Captain cursed as he perceived movement behind the large windows that flanked the door, knowing that any minute now a shot would ring out and take the one damn thing from him that he would die to protect. In an explosive manoeuvre, he propelled himself over the head of The Winter Soldier and – shield first – into the door to the former storage hall.

**

She woke to a soothing rocking motion, ensconced in warmth and the scent of leather and sweat (and Christ but when had that become a soothing smell) – it wasn’t until her lids cooperated and lifted the tiniest amount that she realized _why_ it calmed her.

Granted she had but the glimpse of _black_ and _red_ and _ice-blue_ but the locations of the colours gave her enough insight as to deduce that she was in James’ arms – and she burrowed a little bit deeper.

“Looks like the принце́сса has awoken.“

Darcy hummed against the rock-hard Kevlar that was inconceivably supportive against her neck. Natasha was walking next to them, she realized when her eyes came back online as well, the red-shine of her hair muted in the setting sun – probably as the armed guard that James couldn’t be what with his arms filled of her.

“You okay?”

Her nod was a little awkward from where she was plied against the black armour, but she caught the Russian’s eyes and knew that her answer had been conveyed – the woman nodded back, before giving her a tiny smirk.

“I see you made use of those holsters.”

Darcy returned the mimic tiredly. “I would boast that I knew it was you if I could move. But my head feels like lead.”

The arms around her tightened, the steps faltered just ever so slightly breaking the soothing rhythm that had been rocking her into a state of half-consciousness – the red-head’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say a thing (Darcy wondered if the stickiness on her head was still saliva).

Sunlight cut through her retinas, piercing her eyes bright and unfiltered, and she grunted hollowly, sagging deeper into James’ shoulder – his arms moved to accommodate her (shelter her) and her noise of dismay turned into something appreciative.

“Ms Lewis.”

She sagged a little in the iron bands around her, trying to sink through them and then through the ground.

“Fuck Captain – I’m-a get you a freaking bell.” She was _nauseous_ , she realized – although she couldn’t quite tell if that was caused by the strength she needed for her snark or something else entirely (she hoped it was the first… but given the constricting pressure in her throat she really couldn’t say for certain).

“Keep your comments to yourself.” He bit and she wondered how it came that he was able to convey his ‘You-are-now-Enemy-of-the-state’-look without her needing to see him – it had to be a super-power. “ _This_ was precisely what I meant.”

And yeah, she got it – message received loud and clear: dumb civilian is not supposed to go around and traipse into friendships with super-spy-ssassins that were buddies with super-asses back in the days when ten dollars could still buy you a week’s worth of food or Tijuana bibles for the whole company.

The Captain’s growl interrupted her train of thought and when she chanced a look she found herself at the end of an appraising stare courtesy of Natasha.

Oh balls. “Due to probable concussion brain-to-mouth-filter disengaged.” She warbled, convinced by now that the acidic taste on her tongue was a herald of sick – and given the fact that she hadn’t yet eaten today that could only mean one thing.

“Lewis you are a danger to yourself and those around you.” The man threatened lowly. “I should have had you moved to another country – months ago.”

The responding snarl vibrated underneath her cheek and it took her a moment to realize that it was _James_ who’d chosen this moment of time vocalise his disagreement – even Darcy’s swimming head picked up on the building tension around her. She reached her hand out, patting at his hair (his ear?). “Hey there, no jostling the concussed damsel in distress or I swear to god I will puke on you instead of Captain Wedgie.”

(While she couldn’t remember it clearly, and wasn’t that a pity, she was relatively sure that she made good on that promise mere breaths later when the bile in her throat chose to follow through with the threat – she was so not paying the cleaning bill for that.)

**

The Captain was wrong about the Science Department not being able to fix her – she found, with no little amount of smugness. Leave it to a small cadre of her minions to realize that there was a lack of research concerning the speeding up of healing in normal human beings and settle to explore this.

Helen Cho was her new, favourite gopher – after her Science-Three that was – and she made certain to have her name mentioned to Tony; the woman doubtlessly deserved some attention after ascertaining Darcy’s accelerated healing (twice – and just think what she would be able to accomplish with the right support; the world might just actually become a better place!).

With the recent AIM-scare, Darcy was assigned a guard – one that wasn’t James unfortunately – that would walk her to her flat, walk the perimeters and then leave after she’d set her security. Clint had had her know that they observed from just the next building which had made her anxious before she realized that ‘observation’ was mostly done by bugs out of respect for her privacy ( _private moments_ were hence kept to quick dalliances under the shower).

Three days after she’d been released from the med-bay and been told to make full use of her sick-days and _rest_ – she succumbed to a desire to walk. She needed to get out into the open, even if her constitution would only allow for a walk around the block, but being cooped up in her flat was no longer an option.

Darcy dressed quickly and functionally, hoping to be neither too hot nor too cold while outside. However, all that was forgotten when she opened her door.

Because on her doorstep, carefully bound and obviously gagged – despite being unconscious – lay the last three AIM-goons she had seen on the day of her abduction. The one she’d seen vaguely, who’d pressed on injecting her with _something_ sported the blackest of bruises on his face and she wouldn’t have been surprised if his jaw was broken.

A snort fought its’ way through her nose and she chortled as a large smile broke out over her face.

This shouldn’t be funny – she knew this, rationally. Every other person would have thought it deeply concerning to find three knocked-out Muscles that had, not even a week ago, been standing over her and discussed whether or not to operate on her, on their doorstep. And all she could do was laugh.

Because there was not a doubt in her mind as to who had put them there – and something in her chest let loose at that.

She plucked her phone out of her pocket and dialled the first number that came to mind, a fond smirk on her face as she toed off her boots and touched her toe to one of the faces of the Muscle. “Darcy?” Stark sounded worried – she couldn’t say whether it was from her having his number or because he thought she needed something.

She smiled brightly into her hallway. “Stark! So good to hear your stellar voice.”

“Uh-huh.” He didn’t precisely answer but then Darcy didn’t need him to.

“Listen I need a few goonies and three cells in The Big House.”

Crashing on the other end of the line had her pause for a second while she rolled her toe through the scraggy hair of the next man – he probably had a pretty bad concussion with _that_ injury – before it registered that her conversation partner was fine, given the healthy streak of curses he conjured.

“What the actual _fuck_ Lewis?!” he groaned. “Why?”

She shrugged, the smile winning out again as she thought of a proper answer, before finally going with: “Because, Iron Scion, I currently have three AIM-goons hogtied on my doorstep and I don’t know how that would go over with the proprietor. Could you be so nice and take them off my hands?”

Good Lord but James Barnes knew his way to the heart of a dame. She smiled brightly at Tony’s choice expletives, padding to the last man and looked him over with a moue of satisfaction.

**

When she did return to work, four days after she’d found the three AIM-goons at her door-mat, she had dressed to the nines. Seriously she hadn’t put this much thought to her wardrobe when she’d gone on her Prom (although, admittedly, she’d been hell-bent on crashing it; and had thankyouerymuch) – and could not thank Thor enough for having made certain that the day was, indeed, a very nice one.

The sun warmed her sufficiently as she made her way from The Bronx to Lower Manhattan, showing the world her brightest smile – even though the people she crossed on the street did not know what had warranted it.

The Tower was up and filled with chatter as she entered the elevator, surprised to find Tony waiting for her – a mug of coffee in his hands. The billionaire took one look at her and almost choked on his drink.

“You are trouble, Lewis.” He wheezed as he came up for air, no small amount of admiration in his voice and laughter in his eyes. “So much so I think I’m going to have to build you a shrine. Pepper would probably agree…”

Darcy smirked, smoothing down her clothing to stem her sudden nervousness (she wasn’t even certain if he’d be there but…). “Right?” she answered instead. “I am so worthy of being worshipped.”

Tony’s smirk widened as the elevator doors opened and Darcy Lewis _strutted_ with a confidence usually reserved for cocks and the occasional playboy-philanthropist hanging back in the elevator. While she’d been worried about his presence – or lack thereof – she obviously shouldn’t have because just as she rounded the corner to her office, _there_ he was. And Darcy’s painted smile widened.

Captain Asshat stood next to him and while James’ face didn’t show any immediate reaction, the falling jaw of aforementioned prick was all the confirmation she needed; her message resounded loud and clear.

As she walked up towards the two of them, James resting against the doorway of her cube-office with a small bag in his metal hand, she thanked god that he had trouble with the T-Shirts that the Avengers were continuously pushing at him to wear. The texture didn’t sit right with the aggravated nerves at his shoulder and he would wind up shrugging out of it more often than not, especially – she’d found – when in her presence (he _had_ to know what it did for her coherency).

She’d taken to collect them and had, by now, a rather impressive stock of James’ shirts at her flat – but hadn’t ever known that they would come into handy like this.

But today, of all days, she was glad that she had them. His shirt – complete with his name and service-number printed on it (probably a gift from Captain Dickhead) – was too large on her, the neck a little off, showing the skin of her shoulder and the matching black strap of her bra, and if she wouldn’t have stuffed it into her jeans then it’d have hung down to the middle of her thighs – yet she was proud to say that she’d made it work.

For the occasion she’d wiggled into a sinful pair of three-quarter pants that looked as if she’d painted them on and topped it with her only pair of Louboutin-heels (red sole included) and a red neck-chief.

Yeah, she looked pretty fabulous today – but then, she only had eyes for the topless soldier leaning against her door, the blond next to him utterly forgotten as she made a beeline directly for him; giving him the largest grin she dared.

“I had a joke about cats dragging in their prey but you literally laid slain enemies at my feet and I ask you: James, how is a girl supposed to resist that?” she grinned and relished when he didn’t make to hide the tug at his lips.

He didn’t answer, but lifted the bag in his hands to her inspection – she peered in, curiously, before she looked up again. “Yeah, of course.” She said, as if he’d just verbally asked her what he non-verbally had; her head cocked to the side motioning into the direction of The Captain. “But you know what they say about three being a crowd.”

When he followed her into her cube, he made a grand gesture of closing the glass door behind him and in front of Steve (she didn’t doubt that there was a glare shot) before he settled down at her knee, consciously pushing his naked shoulder against it (and boy did that feel pretty where her calves were bare) before he fished for their treats in his bag handing her the shake and the apple, before picking one for himself.

Rogers stewed outside of her office for the whole time that James leaned against her and when her hand drifted lower to sift through his hair, he tensed but for the fraction of a moment before fully relaxing against her (she caught herself waiting for a purr and felt a little silly).

**

She would like to tell you that it was ‘by unspoken agreement’ but it really wasn’t and when he knocked at her door later that evening she was dressed in black leggings and woollen socks that complemented his shirt, untucked for this, effortlessly (Darcy was on a fashion-roll today it would seem).

When she opened the door, she did _not_ expect him to be there – but all the same, he was, a packet of tea in one hand and a duffel-bag that he held with the other slung over his shoulder (he looked like a soldier coming home, especially with his combat boots and tac-pants, but she would yet keep that to herself).

The broad smile that she seemed to reserve just for him broke out over her face and she moved aside to admit him to her home and found, for the first time, that she wasn’t nervous about his presence as she would have been with anyone else. Because James had already seen her home, he’d custom-made Boobie Traps for it and if he would have wanted something embarrassing on her, he’d have looked for it already.

His duffel sunk to the ground as she closed the door and, turning, she accepted the tea that he stretched in her direction fighting the strong urge to rise to her tippy toes and press a kiss to his cheek (they weren’t there, not yet… but hopefully soon).

He still didn’t say a word, not even when she prepared the tea for them the proper way (he did give her appreciative look for that though) and settled down at her dinner table, where she grabbed for a  few sheets of loose paper and handed him a few.

“We’re going to play Sinking Ships and I’m going to kick your ass at it.” She proclaimed – and thusly it was (she would forever retain the look of utter surprise on his face when she trounced him – thrice).

And when their cups were emptied, their sheets of paper forgotten and sleep called, neither of them hesitated to go for the couch in her living room, where he placed her on the inside and lined himself up on the outside, her fleece blanket thrown over them as their legs tangled.

He was warm and comfortable, wrapping his arms and legs around her and burrowing her deeper into the cushions of her sofa as they pulled each other closer with lazy arms (she didn’t deny it, there _was_ a zing of pleasure, but she was a decent human being and she could ignore it for now). When they finally settled, she was surrounded by the scent of leather, gun-oil and earth that emanated from him and his fingers kept up a steady if lulling movement of strokes up-and-down her back – she couldn’t tell you when she fell asleep (but it was the best she’d had in her life).

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end!! 
> 
> OMG you people I fell in love with you and your beautiful, beautiful comments and compliments and the encouragement THANK YOU so much for all the kindness and the love and... everything!
> 
> I... might have a few extras still on the side-lines that I'll serve as dessert but probably not in the same regularity I did this story
> 
> Thank you so much for staying with me :D


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